We could do with some presence, some of their help right now. It’s been well over a week – and it feels much longer – since the huge crowd of walkers ascended on the base and began to pile the pressure on our humble defences. And all from an errant flare fired in our direction by A. Anonymous. Those primitive defences have been surprisingly robust, actually, and our hard work on shoring up the perimeter fence has proven far more effective than we probably thought when putting the hours in. But we don’t know how much longer it will be able to take the strain.
I guess ‘force’ is the word of the day in many respects. It makes a nice change from ‘blood’ or ‘mutilation’ or just simply ‘death’. It’s hardly a positive though. Hundreds of insatiable cadavers are forcing more and more pressure on our defences; we continue to be forced to take shelter in here and ride it out; we could do with some armed forces right now to relieve the burden placed on the base; and as long as we are imprisoned here in the enforced loneliness of our grieving, we are forced to face our demons up close and personal and relive every moment of Alice’s brutal suicide, over and over again.
We have even been forced to witness the still-strong throngs of hungered corpses that maraud around Porthreth village. The surveillance system came back online again today after several days without, with all four cameras painting a picture of desperation down in the valley below us. From the winding road leading into the village, to the carnage surrounding the school and the masses of undead mingling in and around abandoned cars in the Square, Porthreth is still overrun.
As hundreds of biters yearn and salivate just feet away from us, and hundreds more clearly still adorn the village’s streets and pathways, we can’t decide whether their numbers have significantly multiplied or we grossly underestimated just how many had been there from the start. The woodlands appear to be the only vaguely empty area around, and we know that there will still be stacks of them laying in wait should anyone stumble through. It makes for depressing thought, and is a forceful reminder of the world we find ourselves surviving in.
27th May 2016
No sooner has the surveillance system been visible to us again, and it has today thrown up two major surprises. First and foremost, what appeared to be the troublesome phantom bell-ringer fell to his death at the school early this morning, right before our glancing eyes – and Jack recognised him.
He thinks it was Mike McHarvey, a former customer of his that had long since fallen into the very modern trappings of alcoholism and had to ask Jack to store his motorbike just before Christmas, having had his license revoked for drink-driving. Despite his woes and slipping standards, he always seemed to scrape through situations and survive – perhaps that’s how he had kept himself alive so far, Jack suggested.
He’s not surviving anymore though. Quite by chance, his demise caught the corner of my eye in the observatory this morning and we watched as he slipped and fell from the safety of the lofty bell tower to trappings of an altogether more sinister nature; the crazed cadavers whose attention he had so courted for so long suddenly found themselves feasting on his unexpected gift frail flesh. If the 30 feet fall hadn’t killed Mike off, the awaiting walkers sure did. Such was their bloodlust, his carcass seemed to quell their appetite for mere seconds.
We’ll never know what the bell-ringing was all about. Was it a cry for help? Was it meant to be an act of some good? Was it a diversionary tactic of some kind? Or was there even any intent at all? It had crossed our mind that it was simply the nonsensical act of someone that had lost it all, including sound thought. We’ve all had our moments, or at least been very close to them.
With Mike ripped to pieces, we’ll never know. I can’t say I was too disappointed, not after that shitbag almost gut Jack and I killed a couple of weeks ago. But there’s no pleasure in any of these rage-filled dismemberments of the zombie apocalypse. You wouldn’t wish it anyone, no matter what they had done to you or your family. Unfortunately, for those of us that saw it unfold on the CCTV, it simply brought back unwanted memories of Alice’s passing last week. There really is no escaping that hurting, that haunting.
The second major moment on screen was far more puzzling. Some time this afternoon, a fifth camera angle came into view – and one that we certainly didn’t expect. For yet more reasons unbeknown to us, a camera we didn’t even know existed must have sprung into life, in Porthreth Vean House; the very same Porthreth Vean House that had only been the subject of much conversation in recent days. At least, we think that’s where it is.
Wherever it indeed is, it appears to be empty – both of survivors and corpse activity. It’s difficult to tell given the limited radius of the camera’s lens, but we’ve had at least one of us watching it religiously throughout the day – on shifts – and nothing has shown up. Not a single movement. It has left us wondering, why would it suddenly come into effect if there is nobody there? Why now? What’s changed?
It also has us wondering how many more covert cameras might be in action out there that we didn’t know about. We would never have known about these five if we weren’t up here at the base. We never even noticed the camera hidden in the woods en route here, and not one of us had ever even glanced at any of the (presumably) more noticeable cameras perched aloft in the streets of Porthreth. So how many more are out there?
This new view aside, they all show continuing crowds of corpses starved of fresh flesh to thrive upon. They’re hungered, and getting angrier and angrier by the day. It’s the same outside the base. There’s still no let up in the hordes of them leaning into the fence; unrelenting duress that we fear is going to conquer our defences any day now. We literally cannot sleep at night for fear of it being ‘the night’ that they all pile in and lay siege to the building itself. The children are terrified, visibly terrified. They have that to deal with, piled on top of the layers of grieving and remorse they’re struggling to process right now. And they’re not the only ones absolutely shitting themselves that this is all going to cave in on us in spectacular style.
All of which is feeding Jenny’s fire of inquisition about whether this military base really is fit for the purpose we’re trying to place on it – that being surviving 2016. Her doubts are increasing by the day, despite the relative sanctuary and security is has given us so far. I almost didn’t want to tell her about the new camera stream that came online today – I knew it would fuel her ambitions to move on. Sure enough, I overheard her pressing Jack on Porthreth Vean House and what it could offer us. He was curt and non-committal, but the questions have begun and that ball is rolling.
In the meantime, we have to hope that tonight isn’t the night. Sleep well, reader.
6th June 2016
Dear diary, dear reader
I’m back, a full and frantic 10 days since I last committed words to page. It’s been hell, pure hell. Not because of any new loss of life, thankfully, but more through the increasing forfeit of freedom and utter panic. The power and Wi-Fi have been down, and I couldn't find the dongle anywhere. We’re still not sure what happened or why, but we had no power whatsoever.
We can’t help thinking it had something to do with the sheer mass of the undead that now exert pressure on the whole base’s surroundings – perhaps some cabling, whether underground or over ground had been exposed or something. More likely, the main power terminals at the rear of the building were damaged in some way. Whatever it was, unusually for this particularly primed group of survivors, it caught us by complete surprise. Worse still, we don’t know how long we have until it next drops out; Jack and I will investigate as soon as we can, but the time is not now. The site is completely compromised as I write this, with pressure swelling on almost all facets of our defences.
It has been a terrifying ordeal for the last 10 days. It's felt like we've all been sitting ducks, waiting for the army of the undead to lay siege to the building. As day after day passed without electric, without connectivity, and as night after night passed without lights or vision, the feeling
grew worse. We had no eye on the world outside, no idea if the voracious enemy at the gates had found a way through. We all shared the same deep in-breaths of calm and exhale of panic, almost in sync with our personal paranoia. Though bound together and literally clustered together in the small confines of the once lavish drawing room, we had all never felt so lonely. It simply radiated from each of us.
There we have been, collectively cowering in the corners of rooms, curled up tight in variations of the foetal position, submissive and vulnerable and entirely waiting to succumb to the bad thing – just waiting to be torn apart. Waiting to feel the rip of every piece of flesh from your bones, the twang of every taut cartilage snapped in frenzied pursuit, and the fevered flagon of pools of blood sucked from your core. For the children it has been brutal, a chastening and mentally scarring experience – on top of all of the other crushing traumas they have endured.
It’s been a harrowing, mortifying week or more and I think that despite everything we have been through in the last 4-5 months, we’ve reached a whole new low. As I bring this short communiqué to a swift end for the evening, it belies that the night is still yet young – Jack and I have much to do now that the power is restored and we can begin to reconcile our position in this ever-deepening crisis.
8th June 2016
The full extent of our plight is now clear. Having spent all night assessing the situation and taken it in shifts to man all exits and entrances while the other sleeps, Jack and I are now aware of the whole situation before us.
There are corpses to three sides of the base. Numbers appear to have plateaued, but there is still considerable force leveraged against the perimeter fence. One whole side of that fence, to our left as we look out over the site from here in the observatory, is free from the cadavers; it's literally a case of the coast is clear to that side, but it's not the direction we want to be heading in. It would lead us out into the open, away from Porthreth, and along the craggy cliff top.
That's too dangerous and even if we tried to take an elaborate detour around the base, heading out a couple of miles before doubling back toward the village, it would be too much of an arduous – and potentially hazard laden – trek for the children to take on. Nic, Tam and Riley are just not cut out for that kind of peril yet; Jenny, in her increasingly compromised and now evidently maternal state, isn’t realistically read for that either.
The tunnel out from the base that we built is intact too, should we choose to use it. The advantage is that it would give us an almost undetected route off the site and a considerable head start on any mass army of the undead that might set off in our pursuit. The problem is, that it heads out into that very same direction along the coast that we do not want to be embarking on.
The activity in Porthreth itself looks stable, according to the surveillance system, and therefore still heavy. But we can at least see some semblance of a path through the main drag of the village emerging – and potentially a passable route down towards our apartment or Porthreth Vean House, should we ever become curious enough to make that a target destination.
At the moment, that’s not our outlook; the thinking is to continue to ride it out here, and hopefully buy ourselves some freedom or time, somehow. Jack and I are considering taking the tunnel out of the base, briefly, and heading up toward the stone-built farmhouse to the rear of the site to create some kind of distraction that might lure the walkers away from the fence long enough to pick them off, handful by handful. We have firearms and our chosen combat weapons to pull it off, just, but it could be a horrendous, draining couple of days getting through nigh on 800 of them, and our survival would hinge hugely on being able to double-cross back on ourselves without getting caught. It could prove to be a disaster. It only takes one cadaver to overcome you or take you by surprise. When there are up to 800 of them out there, there is no safety net.
But there are other problems emerging that could prevent us from riding it out up here. For the first time yesterday, we were given reason to fear for our water supply. Muddy water began flushing through from two different taps in the building. The other three sinks – plus the shower units – are all running clear and fine, but for how long? We do wonder if we're starting to see the water network degrade and fall into decline. How much longer can we rely upon that basic human right?
9th June 2016
There it is, stood rigid and, if we didn’t know better, pensive before us – the ‘stalker walker’ that has so taunted our presence ever since we stepped foot into the woods en route to the sanctuary of this old military base. It’s still out there, patiently waiting at the rear of the building for us to stumble out and into its path. At least, that’s what we are led to believe.
In all probability, it has been there for some time. We had not caught sight of it for weeks, during which time it had presumably been lurking out of view behind the building, once more demonstrating those almost cerebral or human qualities that render it unique to all other cadavers we have so far come across; patiently, intelligently waiting for its prey to show any signs of weakness and expose itself.
That prey is us. It is still seemingly waiting for us, furtively forsaking all other potential bloodbaths in pursuit of our fleshy feast. We only became aware it was still there when Jack and I glanced at it as we exited the tunnel for our first reconnaissance run outside this morning. We were heading out to literally get a lay of the land around us and establish the feasibility of creating a distraction to lure the walkers away from the perimeter fence. But we got far more than we bargained for. As it stood there, strong and commanding and slowly lumbering toward us, our path out to the desolate farmhouse in the next field along was completely blocked.
Trying to nimbly slip past and make passage to the farmhouse, it showed faster reactions than I had given it credit for and engaged in an awkward scuffle with Jack. Resisting the gaping opportunity to simply sink its rapidly decaying teeth into him, the zealous corpse opted to brawl with Jack instead and came off worse – for now – in the ensuring melee as it was overthrown and temporarily floored. As we fled in fear and retreated back to the safety of the tunnel, there was just time to seize a redundant smartphone that had fallen to the floor amidst the sprawling. From there, we didn’t look back.
That was at least until a couple of hours ago. Angered, brooding, and yet still conveying an impressive modicum of intellect, it was stood there staring up at us in its own imitable and entirely eerie way, its head tilted to one side and its eyes piercing our poise all at once. It waits for our flesh, and I can’t help feeling that the next time we encounter it, we might not be so lucky. Twice now it has held us up at close quarters and twice we have evaded it, arguably more by chance than design. I’m not so sure our third time would be so successful. Jack was torn between letting a load of lead loose into it (why not, the base is already heavily compromised) and keeping the firearms in their holsters out of intrigue. Could this corpse have a more significant role to play in the evolution of the undead? For now, the guns are kept in place.
12th June 2016
After our near-miss a couple of days ago with the now infamous ‘stalker walker’ as we refer to it, came the bombshell of its former identity.
Having remembered that I had its salvaged smartphone in my pocket from the scuffle, some hours later we examined it and realised we had the right charger amongst our limited possessions, and promptly plugged it into the mains. Though there's perhaps no reason why it shouldn't have, the sleek smartphone effortlessly came back to life, eventually, restored with power and looking as shiny and resplendent as it once had before. After several simple guesses at a passcode, and several more forced pauses as it locked us out for repeated failure, eventual success came about an hour later and delivered a crushing blow within seconds.
The canine wallpaper was the first giveaway. The swathe of mental agility apps downloaded to the phone provided the next big hint. And a flick through the Contacts list left Jenny in little doubt. But it was the Settings
menu that confirmed our stalker walker's identity in black and white.
Steph's iPhone, it read.
Like the handset slipping through my fingers, the penny dropped. It had been our good friend Steph all along. We were gobsmacked. Really? Surely it wasn't? Could the lumbering yet tactile carcass out there that had sought our fleshy xxxxx for so long really be Jenny's cherished childhood friend? It was almost beyond belief. It no longer resembled her at all, not one bit.
And yet, it all started to make some warped sense. I can now see something of her in it. And it also explains that sense of being watched for so long – that unnerving feeling of someone or something you know piercing your presence with their powerful 40-yard gaze. At least, I hope that's the foreboding feeling of being watched explained away; we could do without any other surprises right now. Of all the people, if there was going to be an intelligent cadaver, a corpse that was a little different and seemed to almost bond with the virus and do things with it that no other victim had come close to doing, it was going to be Steph.
It's just so Steph, somehow; ably bucking the trend and taking control of whatever confronted her.
But this is no light-hearted matter. It’s a very poignant, pertinent discovery. Steph was our friend. Jenny and Steph went way back, and it’s the latest in a long line of crushing blows that this apocalypse continues to strike. It hurts to even think of her in this form, no matter how much we know deep down that that isn’t Steph anymore.
It carries great significance too, not least because of the cerebral nature of this particular cadaver. We have witnessed first-hand so many instances and behaviours that appeared to show intellect, understanding and perception. We have seen so many examples of human characteristics – and therefore weakness – seeping through into Stalker Steph’s actions that it actually offers hope. Even Jack, who is otherwise straight down the middle and simple in his approach, agrees: if there can be an apparently cerebral side to some of the undead, and potentially weaknesses in their otherwise ruthless armour of total animal instinct, then there could be a way of exploiting or adapting that rationale.
The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3] Page 23
