The Pestilence: The Diary of the Trapped

by Rob Cockerill

  More than that though, it’s like there’s been a mass cull of late – as if something, some kind of event or slaughter, has taken place and zombie numbers have grown substantially. They're rife. They're everywhere. Down every street and alley, across every lawn and drive, up against doorways and deadbolts – they've even wading up the river. The village is teeming with the undead, worse than ever before. Worse still, they look revived or refreshed, as if they have feasted and been renewed. They appear sated and yet Insatiable all at once. It's the most fearsome that I can recall seeing these things.

  Are they just returning from the beach end of town, so many days after the search and rescue helicopter first lured them that way? Or has there been a slaughter somewhere? We didn't hear anything unusual. We certainly couldn't hear anything over the sound of the wind and rain hammering against these four walls. They have to have fed off something to be like this. They're so vigorous now, so animated and ravenous. We watched from that first floor vantage point, out of their sight line, and yet we got the feeling they're senses were heightened, that their ferocity and foreboding had intensified. We felt like our presence might be felt at any moment.

  We scrambled back downstairs to silently shore up any remaining weak spots and run through all of our defences again. The house was not aloof of the great swathes of cadavers marauding through the village and as I write this, it still isn't. We're all on tenterhooks. We have to focus on doing what we know we do best – fortifying, strengthening and hunkering down for the long haul.

  10th October 2016

  Day 268 – RECAP

  It's freezing cold and so windy with it, while an unchecked army of the undead swathe through the village in their lust for flesh.

  We are nearing full health now as a group – as 'full health' as you can be during such dark times – but we're nonetheless trapped here in this dilapidated old manor house, limited in what we can actually say or do by the pulsing crowd of cadavers that bay for blood outside.

  We haven't been this badly trapped since late January and that led me to tally up how long we've been surviving this nightmare exactly. 267 days, that's how long. 267 weary, woeful, crushing days. In trying to find any shred of life-affirming positivity from our journey since 17th January, it's time for a recap.

  ....

  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 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 ‘outbreak’ might last. As fans of the zombie genre, my wife Jenny and I knew the signs and we prepared ourselves. Scared shitless as we were of the vicious animals that lay in wait outside, we imprisoned ourselves inside. We used every furnishing and idea that we could to reinforce our humble two-bed apartment, and we did it well.

  As the pestilence took hold and the world rapidly razed itself to the darkest depths of existence, we sat there in deepest, darkest rural Cornwall, stuck inside the four walls of our small apartment and riding it out. But for all of our success, we could not escape the fact we were entombed – trapped there, slowly running out of food and one-by-one, our creature comforts as we knew them, and gradually losing our minds to the unrelenting silence that we had to observe. We were imprisoned in a very scary, very lonely new world.

  And so, on 17th February, little more than 30 days since the apocalypse began, we left the apartment in search of something more. We couldn’t take any more. We’d hunkered down for so long, we needed to come up for air. A fortnight later, and we finally found the kind of salvation we were looking for, more than a mile out of Porthreth: a former military base boasting watchtowers, perimeter fence, runway, grassy knolls and a remote cliff-top location.

  It had been a long and fearful two weeks. We became killers along the way. We forgot who we were, what we were about. We became new people. We met others; we befriended them and empathised with them, but ultimately pitied them and their fearful withdrawal. We also lost a lot of hope along the way. Firstly, when we saw others die, right in front of us. Secondly, when we stopped by Jenny’s father’s house en route to find that her family had long since departed.

  The military base gave us the time and freedom to ponder many questions; internal interrogations that left a deep impression upon us. We scoped it out, almost every last inch of it, and we sought to learn as much from the site’s ransacked chemical weaponry lab as we possibly could. We made it work for us; we built a home there at that base and put steps in place to garner sustainability. We grew crops, we built blockades, we kept fit, we made ‘plans’ for the future. And we discovered up there that Jenny was pregnant. Then, against all odds, Jenny’s father arrived at our gates. Jack and his children Nic, Tam and Riley found sanctuary at the base for a while too.

  But it was not without flaws, and it could not protect us forever. Besides basic crops, we had no food supply – and no tangible source moving forward. Its remote location had been a huge advantage, but in the interests of food security it was a major disadvantage; every time we needed more, we risked another potentially fatal trip out into the open. It was also always going to be a prize – as long as there were survivors in the world, in the village or nearby, the base was a prize worth fighting for. We had almost five months there, perhaps the safest five months of the pestilence for us, but we didn’t want to make it six or seven at the expense of any one of our lives defending it. We had felt ‘watched over’ ever since we arrived there, but it was not until just days before we left that we realised we really were being watched all along; when Ezrah confronted us, he became another murderous encounter along the way. How many more Ezrah’s were out there?

  So we left. It was Mid-August 2016 and we left the base in the early hours to head back down into the village. We began by car, but soon had to resort to foot. The village was overrun, far worse than when we had last seen it. Everything pointed to a ransacked, abandoned ghost town, where the undead ran amok in search of sating their bloodlust.

  We picked up multiple injuries along the way, the group was compromised, and we ended up sheltered – as planned – at Porthreth Vean House, a former Georgian manor house that served as a guest house prior to the pestilence and has been in decline both before and since. Its far from what we envisaged. It’s not as grand and impenetrable as we once thought, nor is it in any way well stocked. In trying to address the latter point, I embarked upon a solo mission to the old apartment that Jenny and I shared, knowing it was still loaded with food and drink rations. It was, and we’re now benefiting from that invaluable haul of goodness, but it almost came at the cost of my life. Trapped in the apartment with a handful of fervent corpses bearing down on me, it was the closest I have come during the pestilence to joining it.

  Now, it feels like we're going back to the start – except a whole lot worse.

  It's 10th October, we are barricaded in against the elements and endanger outside. We have what appears to be fresh running water, and the power is somehow still working. We're still not sure how that's even possible. We have more food and drink supplies than we've enjoyed for many months, and we are more nourished as a result. We have our health too, just about, and we are still intact as a family group – just the six of us. Soon to be seven.

  But that's where the positives end for now.

  We have no idea or hope how long our supplies will have to feed us until. We have running water, but a distinct lack of fresh air to speak of. We often have to head upstairs to one of the rear-facing bedrooms, where far less corpse activity is registered on that steep side of the craggy valley, to momentarily open a window and suck some fresh – albeit putrid-smelling – air into the lungs. Each and every time it's a risk.

  We have our health, but mentally we’re fragile right now. We’ve been through so much my recap could never do it justice. So much trauma; so much pain; so much mental tort
ure. Jack, Jenny and I each see the faces of those we’ve slain, every time we close our eyes. Nic, Tam and Riley are scarred by the loss of their mother, later Alice, and every horror scene they’ve been exposed to in the last 250+ days. We’re all fighting demons in our minds at some juncture.

  And we need to ally sharpness to that physical health. With the exception of my heavily pregnant wife Jenny, we need to keep battle-focused, we need sharp agility and nous, we need the kids to absorb some basic skills of combat or evasion that we know deep down they are way too young for. And for all of that, we need the kind of space and 'freedom' that our former location at the old military base used to afford. We risk getting rusty here.

  To compound matters, the undead army is now at least double the size that we have ever known or seen it to be. Whatever happened, whatever mass killing or major event went down without us knowing, the cadavers have undoubtedly grown in number. They’re rife. They swarm through the streets and passages, through the gardens and greens and even upstream. Once more, just as we were on 23rd January when I first started this diary, our best hope is to hunker down and wait it out. Trapped, surviving 2016.

  14th October 2016

  Morning reader

  I think the church is compromised. I can't be sure without heading outside and slaloming my way through the side streets to get a closer look, and I'm certainly not going to be doing that anytime soon with the level of corpses beyond these four walls. But I noticed at first light what appears to be an ajar door to the church and possibly a whole lot of blood sprayed up against the wall.

  It was 'early doors' as some might say and with Jack watching over Jenny and the kids as they still slept, I crept upstairs – blade in hand, naturally – to get a stealthy insight into the scene outside. I chose Room 8, to the far end of the building, as it looks out over the village and yet is slightly obscured by a conveniently placed oak tree; so my opening of the windows would hopefully go unnoticed by the undead below. Fortunately for me, that plan worked and I got a great vista of the village before us, seemingly undetected - but that same tree did just did enough to obscure my view of the church itself.

  What I saw was a village completely teeming with cadavers; almost every square inch of road or pavement seems to be covered with raging, flesh-hungry corpses. Lawns are littered with insatiable, loitering lopers hell-bent on stripping the meat off every living human they can find. We are going to need to seriously think about our next move. I'm just not confident we can stay here undetected or undisturbed, without serious reinforcement efforts. We need something mega to make this place safe and secure. And we're all going to need to focus our attentions on how we can make this grand old house work for us – starting with strength and stronghold, and then thinking about endurance or sustainability.

  If staying put is not an option, then we need to think even harder about what the literal next move is. First of all, we would need to think of where to go; secondly, we'd have to think of an absolutely flawless way out of here. It really would have to be both seamless and faultless, and arguably the most carefully coordinated plan we have come up with to date. The threat level outside is so heightened that I honestly don't think we have margin for even the slightest single mistake – especially with three young kids and a heavily pregnant lady in tow. Jenny may be blooming right now, but she's still potentially the most vulnerable of us all.

  What I was also greeted with this morning, was a picture of fervent activity around the church, from what I could see. There wasn't just the heavy, once impenetrable wooden door that sat ajar and the fresh-looking bloody that was sprayed up the walls, there was also a lot of visibly animated zombies around the building. They were clearly more enlivened or excitable than the thousands of others swarming through the village. It immediately appeared as though something had gone down at the church in the last few days, and I got the distinct gut feeling that our band of brothers at the church have been compromised. Whether they cracked and submitted, or made a daring mistake, or even had to slug it out as the holy building was somehow taken by force, I fear the worst. I fear those good, honest and fragile friends that we shared but a few fraught nights with six months ago are now either members of the undead brethren, or part of their rotting insides.

  We cannot know for certain without leaving the house, but I fear the worst.

  23rd October 2016

  Dear diary

  The power is still on, the water is still running. we have food rations to keep us going, and blankets and fabrics for warmth. We have each other. We also have an undead army that looks to be about 5,000 strong all around us, maybe more.It is, the status quo.

  In the absence of anything we can actually do, we’re tending to make a lot of idle chit chat and reminiscing. There’s nothing quite like reminiscing over cous cous, baked beans and pennywort, and jammy porridge for dessert.

  There’s little else we can do right now but huddle down together and either talk or strategise about what to do; we can’t go outside, we’re imprisoned here, and we can barely do a lot inside the house for fear of making a noise or calamitous mistake.

  It’s breaking the kids. It’s really taking its toll on them right now. I have no idea how Riley, a young child little older than a toddler, has managed to keep so quiet and under the radar. It’s testament to his temperament and good nature, but I can’t help thinking a great deal of it is to do with him being so withdrawn – and of course, fear. He’s certainly not himself. But then, I guess none of us really are.

  Amidst our innane chatter, we somehow found ourselves listening to Jack talk about all of the old mine shafts, adits and tunnel networks that run under half of west Cornwall. It was fascinating. We knew bits and pieces about cornwall’s heritage of course, we’d been brought up on it at school and in field trips, but we had never heard what it was actually like to be there when mining activities still took place – when it was just a common occurrence in everyday life.

  Jack told us all about the mines; how cramped they were, how dark and dank they were, how very far down into the ground they were – and still are. He named this mine and that, this ore and that metal, and spoke at length about the way of life that mining used to be, by all accounts.

  Perhaps most strikingly he told us what it was actually like to grow up around this culture, to live and breathe it every day as if you knew no different; to see rivers and streams with steam literally rising above them, and water that ran russet red, to stand on a clifftop and look out over a half-moon crescent in the water of a burnt orange hue. All of which was the result of mining waters pouring out into rivers and tributaries and, ultimately, out into the sea.

  That water was so geothermally hot it created steam clouds that hung over rivers. It was so unenvironmental it turned rivers red. Incidentally I had always wondered how the local Red River had acquired its name, thinking it might have some sinister bloody connotation; now I knew it’s real origin.

  And there was more. Jack told us how, in his early 20’s living in a house in a nearby town, every day at 12pm without fail the ground would shudder for two minutes – something to do with a mine blasting operation deep underground. Regular as clockwork, as if entirely normal. Because back then, it was.

  We sat there aghast. We couldn’t imagine it. But in those moments I did start to imagine some semblance of an escape route in those elaborate mining warrens woven below ground.

  It would be very ambitious, very risky, and so very different, but what if we could somehow find an adit, an entrance to a mine, and make a hasty retreat deep below ground to safety? We could either use it as a way out, until the village is safer to return, or use it as route to another location a few miles away. Or, we could even attempt to make a life of sorts down there?

  Jack admired the bravado and ingenuity of it when I unveiled my thinking out loud; I knew it would appeal to both his simplistic, straight down the middle outlook on life and his Cornish roots.

  But it also goes against his basic theory
of establishing height. At ground level or lower, you only ever risk being trapped with no escape route. And with any plan based around the old mining tunnels that Cornwall boasts by the bucket load, you can’t get much lower.

  It was always going to be a long shot, but I had thought that there might be some value in the idea. I thought that it was probably a hitherto unthought of idea, an ingenious plan that no others would have dreamt of let alone attempted. For a fleeting moment, I wanted to believe it was the way out.

  But as Jack also explained, the plan is fundamentally flawed on a safety and sustainability level. The mines are inherently dangerous, in every possible way. It’s claustrophobic, dark and dank; they are full of unseen pitfalls and shafts; they can collapse or crumble at any moment; they descend deep below earth, sometimes with no way out; and they have enough mineral poisons and toxicity to kill, just like that. Not that living here is any better, but stepping foot into the mines would be like walking into death.

  And so, as I write this on this bleak winter evening, with a neverending chorus of cadavers all around us, it feels as though I’m left staring at another plan that’s been rattling around my mind for a few hours. Right now, while it’s still in its infancy inside my mind only, I’m calling it Plan D for Drift.