The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3]

by Rob Cockerill

  And unfortunately, when we were panic-stricken and sprinting through the street in search of shelter, we didn’t think to check whose houses may or may not be taken! One of the few properties that was noticeably teeming with corpses was the Trethewy’s bungalow, and we have no idea what happened there, so I took the opportunity to deflect the attention from Jenny and I and ask a question ourselves.

  Apparently, Bill and Sue Trethewy were tragically lost relatively early on in this shit-storm. Fear had set into the village shortly after the onslaught began and, while Jenny and I were busy setting ourselves up for the long haul, hysteria was beginning to grip the parish. People were fast losing their heads. The frenzied behaviour was first heightened when the school was unexpectedly ambushed by marauding walkers, thankfully with no known child victims.

  The entrance to the village and part of the heart and soul of the community, the school was the first to succumb to the pestilence. It was overrun in just minutes, apparently. Most had already long since abandoned the premises, but at least two senior teachers hoping to transform the school into an emergency hub for those in need were known to have been among the first of the excited corpses’ prey. No-one knows how many others were inside or why, but many heard that several people were seen fleeing the building into the haggard arms of the undead.

  It sent shockwaves throughout all those who witnessed it, whether close up or from afar in the safety of their own homes. The school had shaped generations, but it was now just another mausoleum of the undead. The same fate soon fell upon the immaculately maintained property of Bill and Sue Trethewy.

  Their modest bungalow had always been one of the best kept homes in the village. Sat back from the main road and in a more than comfortable pocket of land, the spacious bungalow was flanked by a well-appointed double garage and to the left, a large expanse of carefully cultivated garden and vegetable patch – including its commanding seven feet-tall sunflowers. To the front the property was perfectly maintained, with a lawn and brick-built wall and driveway. It was the idyllic homestead, the perfect proud retirement package, and surely the envy of many a homeowner in Porthreth. But it was also an easy target, so open and vulnerable to the overtures of the undead, as would be proven.

  Only hours after the school had fallen and mere hours into the enduring act of hiding, the feeling of being trapped must have gnawed away at the couple and their sense of hard-earned, retired freedom. A fuse blew in Bill, the story goes, as he swung open the front door and sought to front up to the masses of cadavers that had filed into their grounds. Bill’s frustration overcame him and in seconds, scores of zombies did too. Sue couldn’t even put up a fight, her husband’s actions sadly left her completely at the mercy of the ensuing corpses and she was taken in seconds, in full view of many onlookers.

  It was clearly one of the most distressing sights the community had seen or heard about, and bred chilling heartache and even more hysteria. The story has been told many times, yet it was still described to Jenny and I with such clarity and savage detail that it undoubtedly still lingers in the mind. It breeds fear even now, four weeks later. Our fellow survivors have only to think of those harrowing moments and the show-and-tell is suddenly over; their thirst for knowledge dries up for a little while longer.

  Ironically, the only question they don’t seem to have asked is what our plan is, which sums up their outlook right now.

  20th February 2016

  Our third night in sleeping bags and borrowed blankets. Between the unrelenting cold, the unforgiving flooring and the unwavering nightmares, it's been a tough few nights. In many respects, it’s been our hardest so far.

  The throngs of the undead show no sign of calming, there's a round-the-clock overlay of yearning and groaning that's hard to ignore during the small hours. It takes us back to the incessant moaning and hollering we endured in the aftermath of 'Dog's demise all those weeks ago. This once holy building feels just as shrouded and suffocating now as our apartment did then. But we are alive and surviving, we must always remember that.

  The power remains on and we are, figuratively speaking, generally well looked after thanks to the church kitchen and its hidden depths; several cupboards concealed food parcels for the homeless, which have proved to be invaluable in sustaining the group so far. The layout of the building has also worked well in keeping a small congregation of survivors together, unified and in it together. It’s spaciousness has only really been compromised by the oppressive nature of the beasts we face – the crowding corpses, and not the structure itself, create the besieged sense of isolation and loneliness.

  But we're ready to move on now, even if our newfound friends don't know it yet. As much as we have enjoyed the brief respite of a few days of safety in numbers, we need to keep moving in the name of long-term survival.

  So what's our plan? For me, it’s still all about getting to the military base, however and whenever we can. I want it to be safe, secure and a better means of survival for the time being; I want to erect fences and dig out a deep trench all around the base, I want to enable a sense of freedom that we just don’t have right now, I want to build a community of our own up there and, if we’re in this for the long-term, find a sustainable way of living. And I hope to find a means of connecting with the wider world, if that’s still possible.

  I want to find answers too. Surely there are answers out there, somewhere? One of our most immediate questions remains unanswered – who rang the bells at the church, and why? I asked that very question here last night, but to no avail. We all share that same question, it seems. The only way we’re going to get an answer – and I hope it proves to be one we want to get – is to get out there. Jenny has a few questions of her own to get to grips with and feels much more driven to hit the road again.

  We have to be realistic about the task ahead though; we weren’t ready for the ambush we faced last time, and we need to be prepared to take detours at any minute. We’ve had plenty of empty time here to think through our options a little more, especially now that we have seen the state of things out there.

  One of the options is very close to home, and may just give Jenny an idea of what she’s looking for – just a stone’s throw from here, en route to the wooded trail we need to embark upon, is her father’s house. Though it would be a pitiful journey from here to there, perhaps an hour in the very worst case scenario, I think that may be our next stop. It’s something Jenny needs to do. We expect it to be empty, but what we find there may be some much-needed peace of mind.

  When will we find out? Well, tomorrow. It looks like we may have to spend a fourth night here after all. It’s already three nights too long, for me. But Jane, the parish councillor that was instrumental in bringing this whole congregation together, has picked up on our desire to move on and is keen to join us in some capacity. She wants to shadow us and ‘learn more’ about the situation beyond these four hallowed walls; I think she has ideas on a few of the nearby houses and what supplies she might be able to round-up.

  Jane has a lot of nous from what I have seen and has naturally become the figurehead of the group, but I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. It sounds absurd saying this given that none of us really are, but I just don’t think she’s cut out for what the streets have in store for us. On the one hand, I like her and I don’t want her to come to harm; on the other, more ruthless hand, I don’t want her to compromise us. That’s just the way it is.

  I told her about Andrew, and the dangers of looting. She’s the first person I have told face-to-face, and I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. It was pretty tense and nerve-wracking at times, and I think it shook her up a little. Like Jenny, I could tell that she suddenly looked at me through different eyes. Yet it didn’t dampen her enthusiasm to follow us out of the door – I’m not sure it fully registered with her – and she has been pleading with me all day to wait for her, to give her this evening to ready herself.

  An extra night for the corpses to subside is not such a
bad thing, so I agreed to wait until the morning. I just hope my next diary entry isn’t full of regret.

  21st February 2016

  The date implies it's my birthday, 31 years old today, though we wouldn't have known if it wasn't for writing this diary. It's difficult to distinguish one day from the other, every day is a recurring nightmare and each brings with it new threats to our survival.

  At first we were able to keep track of the weekends, we knew if it was Saturday for example, and we would try to do something different to keep some sense of normality or distraction. We might have the last of the bacon and eggs for breakfast, for example. Simple pleasures.

  But that feels like such a long time ago now; as the weeks have rolled by and we've been more exposed to the incidents with the undead of late, we've lost all track of what day it is. Only this diary keeps me on track with days and dates. Does it really matter anyway? Do we care? I'm starting to wonder. Each day is yet another struggle, and today has been a particularly violent, tragic one.

  I’m writing this from Jenny's father's house, where we finally arrived as planned. But we arrived as just two; Jane did not make it. She was savagely torn from limb to limb right in front of us.

  ..…

  We managed to escape the church grounds quite early this morning as hoped, and without incident. The alleyway we had originally hoped to exit down had cleared and all three of us suddenly found ourselves out on Sunnygale Road. That was where the success story ground to a halt. Exiting the alley, we ran blind into a stream of ambling corpses, all covered in spilled blood and guts. Some snapped and snarled through broken jawlines; strained sinews and splayed digestive tracts characterised others; many had clearly been slashed and scratched to death before reanimating. All were marauding oppressively in our direction

  Car mechanics, milkmen, farmers, teachers, accountants, delivery drivers, students, nurses, school children, railway attendants, businessmen, dinner ladies and more all surrounded us. They meandered not lonely as a cloud, but as a pack of assassins baying for blood. The stained overalls of mechanics daubed not just in viscous motor oil, but in added layers of congealed blood too; nurses no longer tending to the injured and helpless, but pouncing and feeding off them; accountants no longer looking after the pennies or the pounds, but racking up every last remnant of flesh; surveyors now analysing buildings only for what prey lay inside.

  The merest sniff of the living drew their hungered attention, and as we bounded out of the alley and into the road, Jane became their latest victim. At first it was just a nick, a deep scrape of bloodied, worn fingers to her neck. She recoiled and stepped back from the breach, putting a line of zombies between us. We couldn’t take them all on, not in those moments, and Jenny and I had little choice but to run for cover down another blind alley. Safe for a few seconds, we watched in horror as Jane appeared to deny – even to herself – that she had been bitten. She fled toward the pub, apparently dazed and in shock. Though heavy and clumsy in their advances, the onrushing cadavers were single-minded in their approach and strengthened by their fundamental fervour for flesh, arms outstretched in an awkward yet merciless gait of pursuit.

  We couldn’t keep up as we attempted to give chase and, now armed with the makeshift weapons pulled from our rucksacks, pick them off. Surrounded, Jane soon succumbed. Injured, shocked and confronted in every direction, she appeared too terrified to resist and merely cowered in the foetal position against the wall of the pub’s beer garden. Submissively shredded in seconds, right before our eyes.

  We spent the next few hours not just grieving and reconciling that trauma, but trying to find a safe and strategic route back from the brink. By the time of Jane’s demise we were just a few feet away, and soon had to retreat ourselves. Though Jane’s carcass became the focal point of most rampaging zombies, pockets of them still lined the street up ahead and more seemed to be pouring out from gardens, patios, parks and alleys. Bodies also lay strewn in the road, potentially an unwitting attack just waiting to happen.

  …..

  Diverted once more via the play park, several hours later we arrived at Jenny’s father’s house unscathed, wounded only in spirit and mentality.

  We expected it to be empty, but Jenny has still found it hard to accept that her family are not here. We knew her father and young family were making a quick getaway at the onset of the outbreak, he had a grand plan that we were meant to be part of but never found out about. The spread of the infection simply moved too fast and caught us all by surprise – we thought we had more time. Didn’t we all? They packed up and left, leaving only a note behind for us to make sense of.

  What it can’t tell us is whether they made it – we still don’t know. That’s one of many questions we aim to answer out on the road. For now, we have to live in hope.

  22nd February 2016

  What would you do in the event of a zombie apocalypse? Flee the country and find somewhere remote and safe from harm? You could try, but you’re unlikely to make it, so many have tried and failed. That’s what we heard, anyway. In fact, some must have tried to flee down here to Cornwall, but succeeded only in spreading the contagion. The biters spread too fast, too damn fast to do anything about it. No-one knows how they covered up to 200 miles in that time, during which the nearest airports had shut-up shop anyway, but they did.

  So would you head out into the open and live life our on the road? Or take your chances at home and reinforced your surroundings? Maybe even the office, perhaps? Either option is exactly what it says on the tin – taking your chances. There’s no safety anymore, not really. There might be safety in numbers, but there’s still no guarantee. Jane’s savage death yesterday reminded us of that.

  A number of people we knew decided to take a gamble out on the road, by car or by foot. They decided it was better to keep moving and not become a sitting target. A moving target is a harder target, they said. But is it a more vulnerable one too? We’ve experienced both takes on it. While Jenny and I have been mobile and survived without a single scratch, we’ve witnessed first-hand the torturous mutilations of both Jake ‘Dog’ Penberthy and now, Jane.

  We are, however, firmly in the camp of taking our chances out on the road. We left our fortified apartment five days ago in search of the renowned, disused military base that sits atop the village’s valley hillside. It’s been a journey punctuated by many diversions and deathly encounters, and we currently find ourselves holed up in one of those detours, my father-in-law’s vacated house.

  Separating us from the pestilence right now is a four-foot high perimeter wall of granite construction, a hefty driveway gate complete with decorative wood cladding, a couple of idle family cars, and a robust lean-to garage and shed. The only thing missing is the MPV; a reminder of Jenny’s father and siblings fleeing the house to presumed safety.

  He had felt that if they stayed here too long they would become sitting ducks – sooner or later, one of the thousands of corpses stalking the village would find a way in. He recognised the need for greater shelter, for something more enduring, and wanted to move in the hope that there might be a means of communication somewhere that didn’t rely on mobile phones.

  That’s a feeling we share, that’s what this fear-filled do-or-die mission we’re on is all about, after all. I’m convinced that there has to be something better, something safer and more sustainable elsewhere. And from the brief note he left behind, I wonder if that isn’t the only idea we share.

  Jenny,

  Sorry, can’t wait any longer. Had to go.

  Not far, somewhere safe close to home.

  Will come back for you when I can, promise.

  Love Dad

  Stay safe J

  Jenny is not so sure, but I think we might be on the same wavelength with the military base. Even if I’m not 100% confident, I’m using it as some reassurance for her; we’ll all be reunited soon. They certainly seem to have left well-prepared. The food cupboards have been pretty much cleared out, the wardrobes look
a little emptier, most of the duvets and blankets are gone, and we can tell that certain tools, gadgets and other useful items have been gathered up.

  Hopefully all of those survival items have come to good use so far. We need to believe that, if only for the children’s sake. They’re too young for this shit, this intolerable, brutal cruelty. We know they’ll be as prepared as anyone can be for this though.

  The only thing they may not have foreseen was this abrasive cold weather. But I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the current weather front. No-one knew what Mother Nature had in store. After all, she had seemingly unleashed this reign of terror on the population, so who knows what else we have to look forward to? Such temperatures, and such sustained cold, is almost unheard of.

  The rain has at least abated for a few days, and this is the warmest environment we’ve been in for several days now. The house is just inherently warmer than our apartment was, even without all of the efforts at insulation and reinforcement that have been made. The gas central heating is a far more efficient means of generating warmth and radiates throughout the house, while the plush thick carpets retain that heat for longer than our cold laminate flooring ever did.

  When you factor in the added layer of reinforcement that Jenny’s father had clearly made to the doors and windows, and that we have since beefed up ourselves out of paranoia, the house is a picture of warmth and security. The upstairs rooms also give us a fair clearer view of the village, to both the front and rear of the house. It’s that view that has enabled us to make an informed decision on our current actions – given the state of zombie activity outside right now, we’re going to remain trapped for at least another 24 hours.