The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3]

by Rob Cockerill

  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 from 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 anyo
ne 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 for 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.

  These things are sick, properly sick. They’re machines now, not humans; thirsty, hungry feeding machines. They don’t tire, they don’t strain or feel pain, they have no weakness – they just feed, and feed. And they’ve been groaning and moaning and banging at the windows ever since they realised we’re here.

  We’ve had to keep everything to a minimum today, even more so than usual in these dark days. It’s been hell, and I know Jenny is feeling it too – she’s terrified. She’s keeping it quiet but I know it’s getting to her. But what can we do? We’re lucky we’re so sturdy and secure in here. All we can do is keep quiet, keep the lights low, sit tight and see it through. Hopefully they’ll get distracted and move on, before we crack up completely.

  2nd February 2016

  It’s been more than two full days now of groaning, whining zombies clambering at our four walls. It’s so intimidating, you just can’t understand how menacing it is until you’re in that position. It really does take the whole apocalypse scenario up a level.

  It’s one thing, one truly terrifying thing, to be running and hiding whilst the world around you is ripped to shreds, quite literally. But it’s another thing again to be face-to-face with that new world and to feel so threatened by it, every single minute of the day. They’re raging out there, raging for our flesh.

  We’re trying to sleep in shifts but it’s not really working. Neither Jenny nor I are really ‘sleeping’. It’s just closing your eyes at best. There’s no drifting away to another place, no dreaming or really resting. Maybe we’re getting like 10-15 minutes of actual sleep for every two-hour shift. We must be getting some sleep for us still to be functioning – it just doesn’t feel like it.

  What it does feel like is some kind of suffocation. Heading into our third day of this, it feels so overpowering, so smothering of our freedom – like going weeks without fresh air. We even feel too petrified to take a shower, in case we get caught out by a reinforcement somehow giving way and the apartment is compromised. It’s ridiculous, there’s no way that could happen without some sort of human error, but that’s the paranoia we’re living under. Something has to give.

  Three things are keeping me sane right now, believe it or not. Firstly, my family: I have to be strong for them. Secondly, writing this blog to you, whoever and wherever you may be. Thirdly, hope – blind hope that someone, somewhere out there far cleverer or braver than me is going to sort this shit situation out. Someone must have a plan, don’t they?

  3rd February 2016

  Has someone got a plan? I’m starting to wonder. I haven’t really slept in something like 80 hours. There’s been the odd doze or slightly resting my eyelids, but that’s it.

  It’s mid-morning so we’re headlong into another day of this nightmare. The groaning corpses outside still haven’t left the drive at the front of the house. It’s been this constant murmuring and shuffling and banging, all day long.

  By evening a few of them stumbled down the side of the building and through the gate
into the back garden, so we’ve had them battering both the front and back of the house ever since. It’s even more harrowing to hear them scratching and hammering at the giant patio doors at the rear of the house. At least with the bricks and mortar the sounds gets a little absorbed and muffled – when it’s on glass, it feels so penetrating.

  I’m so sick of it, all I can see when I close my eyes is their rotting faces and permanently pained expressions, jaundiced yellow eyes and brown, discoloured blood-stained, mangled teeth. It’s so haunting. It stays with you. I don’t want to close my eyes. I think I’ll just push through the night again and hope for the best. Jenny’s been sleeping for a few hours now, bless her. I hope she doesn’t have any nightmares, she’s been through such a lot and just needs rest and clear thought to match. We’re all living in fear right now, with no idea when that will change, or if it ever will. There’s still no word from anyone official, well not that we’re aware of anyway. We are quite cut-off, I guess.

  At times I just want to scream and shout and join the melee that’s unfolding around us, but I can’t. I want to cry and break down, but I can’t. None of us can. My mind is racing. What do we do? Is this really happening? Can I get through this? Can I get my family through? In the order of nature, am I really strong enough to survive this shit, this brave new world?