The Infected

by Gregg Cocking

  It was there on the dining table, the one that I had walked past a couple times since I had entered the unit. An Apple Macbook. Still in the box, unopened. It was beautiful… machined from a solid piece of aluminum, the new MacBook not only looks stunning, it's also thinner, lighter, greener and more powerful than ever… Okay, that’s directly from the box, but this thing is awesome – an ultrathin 1 280-by-800-pixel LED-backlit display, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor, a Multi-Touch glass trackpad, Lithium-polymer battery, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz, 2GB DDR3 Memory, 160GB hard drive… I don’t know what half of that stuff actually means, but it sounds damn sexy and it looks damn sexy too. So I took it.

  I do have my reasons of course – I am not just a casual looter – it will be faster than this desktop of mine, it is portable so I can use it anywhere in my place, and outside of my place if needed, and the fact that it has a battery means that I am not totally reliant on electricity to use it. It’s sitting next to me now, but in the next day or two I’ll move everything across to it.

  Okay, it’s getting late and I am tired, and although I still have a lot to tell you, I am going to go to bed now and will carry on in the morning. I binged on my new found wealth of food when I got back so I think that’s why I feel a bit sluggish now (or that could be the three Windhoek Draughts that I’ve had while typing this?), but whatever it is, I’m buggered.

  Cool. Catch up with you again in the morning.

  Sam W

  9:11am, May 22

  Morning. Just had some cereal (powdered milk and Coco Pops – got both from flat number 30, don’t know if I mentioned those acquisitions?) And a good night’s sleep – maybe it was my excursions that had taken it all out of me, but that was one good sleep. And it is seriously cold today, again. Don’t know if a cold front is on its way or here or whatever. But either way, this weather is not doing me any favours in the ‘downstairs’ department. Not that that would make a difference anyways – still waiting to hear from my new blonde, 18 to 30 roommate with the body of a swimwear model. Just clicked Send/Receive on my mails and still nothing...

  So yeah, I was going to continue my exploration adventure story, wasn’t I? Sorry, just had to check where I left off – okay, so I grabbed the Macbook, made sure that the complex was clear and headed back to my place to drop off the loot. On the way I quickly glanced at the Myburg’s place, expecting to see Mr. Myburg with his grubby, unshaven face against the window, licking his bloodied lips in anticipation of chewing on my elbow. What did I see? A porcelain duck with an oversized, smiling beak staring back at me. Scary shit.

  I dropped off everything at my place, did another check of the surroundings and headed back downstairs, this time to number 31. I wasn’t that lucky again with the door and had to get the screwdriver out, my proficiency with it now impressing even myself. This time, thank fuck, no bloody bathroom to contend with, just your average townhouse unit. I think that the occupant of number 31 was a single guy, maybe nearing his thirties – I had often seen a cute brunette with long hair almost down to her bum with him, but I’m pretty sure that she never lived there (I checked the cupboards and she didn’t). Wait, that makes me sound like a freak, as if I would have stolen a pair of her panties or something. Hey, I resent that – I’ll have you know that I only steal high quality electronic goods... Well anyways, I was just checking the cupboards for anything which may have been of use and noticed only male clothing. So there.

  This guy, Gary or Grant or Greg or Graham, I thought, until I saw his post and saw that his name was Barry, was a serious technical nut and had boxes and cupboards full of electrical gadgets and gizmos, three quarters of which I have no clue what they were – and I thought I knew quite a lot about ‘stuff’. So anyways, if I ever need anything electrical I’m sure he’ll have it.

  So other than a horde of spare parts for PlayStation’s, radios, computers and remote controlled cars, the former occupant of number 31 was able to offer up the standard fare of bachelor food that I had become accustomed to – the savoury stuff: assorted flavours of chips, some tasty varieties of pretzels, and Baz, I hope you don’t mind me calling you Baz, thank you so much for the unopened, 1kg bag of assorted nuts – I love my nuts – cashews, almonds, pistachios, the lot. I am trying to ration myself with these nuts as I could honestly eat the whole bag in one sitting, so I have separated them into ten Tupperwares (more on that now), measured meticulously 100g into each, and I am going to limit myself to one a day. Mmmmnnnnn...

  So yes, Tupperware. What self-respecting male has more than three Tupperware boxes in his kitchen? Unfortunately, I do. I have the stuff everywhere but I have not bought a single one. Both my mother and Lil are compulsive Tupperware buyers, and I am led to believe that most women are, so I was constantly being given every conceivable size, shape and colour of the stuff. So I now have a collection of Tupperware to rival Martha Stewart. At least I have somewhere to put my nuts.

  Back to the food and onto the sweet stuff – a couple of packets of sour worms (Baz, you rock), Halls in a couple of flavours, a few slabs of chocolate, a lot of instant jelly, that caramelised popcorn stuff, some boxed custard, and then I’m assuming that this dude had a sweet tooth, because my favourite collection of goodies from any of the units, was his three tins of condensed milk, and eight, yes… eight… tins of Caramel Treat! That has to be the sweetest, tastiest stuff in the world! Double mmmmnnnnn. I also got a couple of two litre Coke Zero’s – doesn’t make any sense – he’s got all this sugar that he obviously loves, but then drinks Coke Zero? Guess you gotta start somewhere...

  Also worth mentioning was his assortment of medical supplies – I now have medicine for every known ailment to man – headaches, cuts, bruises, sprains and… piles… Baz obviously took every precaution necessary, which is good news for me, as I simply emptied the contents of his medicine cabinet (which I am sure was custom made as I have never seen one that big) into my kit bag and another cloth bag, and I can now take something for those frikking headaches that I keep getting. Other than food, an assortment of medicines, pain killers and cold and flu stuff (it is winter here in the southern hemisphere you know, and I do get a cold at least once every year, so was glad I got that), were pretty high on the list of must-haves. So again, thank you Baz for that.

  So yeah, I went back to my place, laid everything out in the kitchen, had a bit of a munch (there was just so much choice), and then after I’d had my fill, wrote down everything that I procured so that I can keep track of what I have, what I need, and what I desperately need. I am pretty set for now, but always, in the back of my mind, I know that I’ll have to go out again, and eventually, I’ll exhaust the food left behind in the complex (and the food that hasn’t gone bad) and will have to venture out there. Into their domain.

  But I’ll worry about that later.

  Take care,

  Sam W

  11:23am, May 22

  Hey, just thought of this – what if I turn my balcony into a veggie garden? It gets good sun, is close at hand, will get rain in summer and is easy to water – just need to get some soil up here and get some seeds, then Bob’s your mother’s brother. Just had to make note of that otherwise I would forget!

  To be honest, I never was much a fan of veggies and salad, but fuck it, I would almost give one of my pinkie toes for a juicy tomato.

  Anyways, copied everything over to my new Macbook and am sooooooo happy! It is so much faster, like comparing a cheetah to a tortoise. A dead tortoise. With a Jacuzzi strapped to its back. It’s gorgeous and that’s putting it mildly – if it was alive I would hump it. And that is seriously not the lack of action talking. I think. So yes, I am now mobile and loving it – just getting used to a few of the shortcuts and things that differ from a PC to a Mac, like no Ctrl key – it’s an apple – but I am sure I’ll get used to it soon. So excuse me while I go play around with my new toy…

  See ya,

  Sam W

  5:41pm, May 24

  Hi out there. Not m
uch news to report. Owen and Johan are still surviving at Eastgate – they report that quite a crowd of infected is building up around the centre but they are confident that their defences won’t be breached. I asked Johan what their food resources are like and he said, quote, “Okay, hey. We eat like kings most of the time.” Doesn’t sound like much is being done to preserve their resources or plan for a bit down the line, which is a bit short sighted if you ask me. He got pretty defensive when I told him what I thought, but hey, they have their own little community there and should be able to care for themselves. I’m not going to worry about them. Or try not to at least.

  I still try Melanie’s phone every day. It’s still dead.

  My folks seem to be having a great time although I did pick up on a bit of... I don’t know... impatience maybe, in my dad’s voice. He’s never advocated violence and I can’t recall more than two times when I actually remember him raising his voice at someone. But on the phone now it’s like he is a different person. He hates the infected – calls them “the fucked ones”. Over and over again. Before this happened the worst swear word that I heard him use was ‘bollocks’, and that was only when things went really wrong, like the time we drove to Cape Town to visit his sister, my aunt Shelley, and we got two punctures within the space of 20 kilometres. The way he sounded when I spoke to him on the phone this morning reminded me of that day. It wasn’t nice.

  And Lil. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. Part of me believes that she’s okay and that it’s just because she is in such a remote part of the country that I haven’t heard from her. But part of me doesn’t think that. That part of me is starting to overpower the optimistic part. And when that happens, like it did last night, I often turn to the booze stash that I inherited from my neighbours. I try drink in moderation now after the last ‘episode’, and it does numb the pain slightly. I know what Lil would say – Don’t hide from the problem, face it – she was always quick to dispense advice, and 99% of the time she was right.

  I miss you babe.

  Sam

  9:54am, May 25

  Shit, I’m cold! I have always hated winter, but now, since… since the infection or whatever it is that has happened, I totally abhor it! You’ve gotta know how cold it is at 4am when one of those idiots manages to set off a car alarm in the complex! I managed to get out onto the balcony to have a look, and this woman, huge, seriously huge – closing in on 150kgs if she wasn’t there already, was scratching at this car, a Nissan Livina, across the ‘road’ (the complex road) and three units down. She’s the first one of them that I have seen in the complex for well over a week…

  I got out a pair of binoculars to see what Huge was so interested in (my Dad had given them to me as a birthday present once – when I had a fleeting interest in birds – and I think I used them twice), but I couldn’t see anything in the car or on it. But what did get me giggling was the fact that the back door was unlocked! Good news – it seems that with the loss of whatever made them this way (life?) along with a loss of dexterity, it seems that they also lost most of their intelligence. Although it was freezing out there – don’t they say that it’s coldest the hour before dawn? Or is it darkest? – I couldn’t take my eyes off her – what was it that was making her so frantic? Eventually, after about 20 minutes of fumbling, scratching and hitting at the car, she managed, I am sure by accident, to push the door handle up. She threw herself into the car, and only because of the binoculars was I able to see what she was after. A dog. One that was well and truly dead.

  Well, that should be obvious – it had been in the car for two weeks, maybe more. If it wasn’t for the collar and the paws I don’t think I would have recognised it – it was basically a mush of meat and fur. Absolutely gross. That didn’t seem to bother Huge though as she dug in with relish, obviously not for the first time in her life. Fur, bones, everything went in – she even licked or chewed the car seat, I couldn’t tell from where I was standing spying on her. The wind shifted at one point and I got a whiff of such a revolting smell that I had to stop myself from retching. That prompted me to go back inside and try get some more sleep. It wasn’t to be though as the flipping car alarm put paid to that. I tried a pillow over the head and cotton wool in my ears, but no luck. It must be like a form of Chinese Torture Therapy because I was tempted on many occasions to go out there and try and find the keys!

  Thankfully, at around 8am I heard a change in the alarm – the car’s battery was dying. It turned out to be a slow death out as the alarm only ground to a monotonous halt just after nine – thank fuck for that. Huge, on the other hand is still trying to get whatever remains of the dog out of the car and into her substantial belly.

  Okay, an update – just checked and she is nowhere to be seen. The car looks spotless, although while I was outside I did get another whiff of Thing In Car Formerly Known As Dog and it was not pretty. Will keep an eye and an ear out for Huge – worryingly was the fact that she found TICFKAD… they must be able to smell things out… Mental note – use more deodorant.

  Take care

  Sam W

  4:27pm, May 26

  Oh fuck, oh shit! The power has just gone out – well ten minutes ago. Oh crap… Powering down to save battery life.

  11:43pm, May 26

  Hell, I’ve been dreading this day for a while now. The power hasn’t come back on yet and I have serious concerns whether it ever will.

  Shit. I’ve only got like seven minutes left of battery life on this computer – I hope this won’t be the last you hear from me. Spoken to Owen at Eastgate and theirs has gone too – well sort of. Just after 1pm they heard the power clicking and going off. It was only dark for 30 seconds or so, Owen said, until they heard the generators kicking in. Because of serious power cuts over the last few years due to Eskom failing to heed the warning that their current power stations were not going to cope with our countries growing infrastructure, many of the main areas of the country were plagued by daily power cuts (they tried to soften the blow by naming these power cuts ‘load shedding’). To prevent losing business, many companies invested in UPS’s and generators – shopping centres like Eastgate needed serious generators if they were to stay in business. This year wasn’t as bad, but the generators were kept just in case, and luckily for a couple hundred people using Eastgate as a safe haven, they were kept.

  Owen says that they kind of figured that that was the end of the power, but they are conserving whatever power the generators have for as long as possible – man, I would hate to be there – Owen says that tensions are running high and that even he and Johan, who have been mates since they could first walk, have been getting at each other’s throats, and Owen said that if they weren’t separated at one stage by some of the others boarded up there, there was a huge likelihood that they would have come to blows. Not good.

  He reckons that they might be able to charge their phones from the generator, but we had to say our goodbyes – not looking forward to speaking to my parents in the morning... I know my mom is going to be in tears. She says that they have had to rethink the fa

  8:20pm, May 31

  Hey, I’m back! Missed me? I suppose you are wondering how I got online again? Did the power miraculously come back? The simple answer is... no. But first, before I let you know how I have managed to get back up and running, I’ve got to let you know what happened a couple of days ago on Friday night, the day after the power died.

  Okay. So I was asleep – I have been going to bed a lot earlier since the power went out, firstly because there is absolutely nothing to do, and secondly, it makes living through this whole thing a hell of a lot scarier when you know you can’t just jump up and turn on the lights. Sleeping, nightmares apart, makes this all that little bit easier to deal with.

  So anyways, I was fast asleep when I was suddenly blinded by light – my first thought was that the power was back on – thank every high and mighty power ever – but it wasn’t, it was my phone which I keep next to me at night just in case anyone
phones – remember, my phone has been on silent since I first saw one of the infected from my window.

  So there I was, seriously shaken out of my sleep – I checked my clock – 4:24am – and looked back at my phone. I blinked. And blinked again. Then I rubbed my eyes and looked at my phone again. And it wasn’t the dwindling battery that had caught my eye. It was the name of the caller. It was Lil.

  I grabbed at the phone and answered – “Lily, baby. Lil? Hello? Lily?” But nothing. It wasn’t that the call was dead, it was that nobody was answering me. I listened as hard as I could, struggling to distinguish whether the sound of the howling dog was coming from the phone or from outside my complex. When the phone clicked and the engaged tone alternated with the howling dog, I had my answer.