The Journal of Tom Barnett: Vampire Apocalypse Survivor

by Daniel S. Atkinson

  The Journal of Tom Barnett:

  vampire apocalypse survivor

  by Daniel S. Atkinson

  Copyright © 2011 by Daniel S. Atkinson

  Note:

  The following journal was discovered on March 31st. It had been uploaded from a pirate Internet connection on mainland Australia. As the world knows, the continent of Australia was decimated by a plague that overran the population within days. The exact nature of this catastrophe is still classified top secret by the United Nations who claims it will hamper their ongoing investigations. Until now it was thought that there were no survivors. The whereabouts and condition of the author is unknown at the time of printing. Tom Barnett’s journal is reprinted here unedited and as found. We accept no responsibility for the validity of his account.

  Part One: The Exodus Is Here

  25th November. 6.34pm.

  Hello. My name is Tom Barnett. This is my laptop. Sorry about those crappy first lines, but I just got this thing for my birthday and I couldn't think about what to write first. Dad relented and bought it for me. Probably feels guilty about Mum’s lack of interest. It's my seventeenth birthday actually, a fairly lame one by all accounts. Don’t get me wrong, I love the laptop, but Mum hasn't even called me yet. Not that I'm expecting her to. It still sucks though. Maybe she is sick, there seems to be a lot of it going around at the moment. At least half my home class was not at school last Friday.

  This journal program I downloaded is pretty cool. It automatically adds the date and time before each entry. We have to write a journal for English class at school. Dad said I could use my laptop as long as I can figure out how to print it once I’m done. Of course I can figure it out, just because he doesn’t know how to run our home network, doesn’t mean I don’t. Now if I can just get used to this keyboard.

  25th November. 8.44pm.

  Mum called. I could tell she had been drinking. She tries to pronounce every word too carefully. Said she was celebrating my birthday. I just listened to her prattle for a while and then hung up. Bet she didn’t even notice. I’ll take some of this personal stuff out later. I don’t want Mrs. Ketcher to read this shit, she would just share it around the teacher’s lunchroom. Yeah big laughs.

  Dad is calling out, something weird’s happening on TV.

  25th November. 11.05pm.

  Can’t believe it. Can’t sleep. Been trying for the last half hour. Dad was yelling frantically for me to come downstairs and watch TV. For a moment I thought it was another September 11 thing. It’s not. It’s different, but no less alarming.

  I remember Dad and Mum’s raised voices that night in 2001. I was 8, nearly 9, and the noise had woken me up. I snuck into the kitchen and peeked around the corner into the living room. I didn’t want them to know I was there because they were always fighting. But they weren’t fighting this time. Mum was crying and Dad was slumped on the couch. I think that was the scariest image for me, Dad just defeated and vulnerable. I didn’t even know about the terrorist attacks until the next day. I was just plain scared by that image of my father.

  As horrible as it might sound, this reminds me of 9/11. I mean in the way it unfolded on TV. Dad pulled me next to him on the couch. “Just watch,” he said. We sat there for two hours straight until Dad eventually told me to go to bed. Since then I’ve heard him lock and check the doors and windows about ten times. He’s still downstairs pacing around.

  Wish I had my little LCD TV in my room but Dad took it away last week. He caught me stealing some of his beers before I went to Rory’s party. Wait a minute, I can surf the web with this thing. Damn. The modem must be turned off, I don’t want to sneak out and flick it on. He might catch me and take away my laptop as well. I’ll try to write down what I saw on the news broadcasts. Might as well, I can’t sleep anyway.

  The first thing I saw when Dad sat me down was some shaky home video footage shot at night. Apparently this guy in Sydney thought the local kids were vandalizing his house. He wanted to catch them in the act. The dude crept around to his garage, where the noises were coming from. You could sort of see a dark figure lurking in the shadows. He yells out something like, “Hey you little brats.” The figure spins around and all you could see were these glowing yellow eyes. He drops the camera at this point and runs inside, scared out of his mind. It wasn’t until the next morning that he was brave enough to go fetch the camera and send it to the press. I think this was pretty much the very first known footage of an infected person. I asked Dad what an infected person was, he shook his head and said, “They don’t know.”

  Apparently stories like this had been circulating for days on the Internet. The mainstream media and authorities largely ignored it. They must have thought it was a joke. I hadn’t heard anything, which is quite odd considering the usual schoolyard rumours that do the rounds.

  By 11pm the news anchor had said that an alarming number of incidents have been reported in all major cities. The details were sketchy at first, and then more and more reports started filtering in. The anchorman was becoming quite flummoxed. It was weird watching this experienced newsman slowly becoming unhinged before my eyes.

  Initially I was quite excited by the events. It was almost like watching a movie. I had that detached feeling. The horror of it only really struck home when these reports started detailing deaths. A female reporter (who would have been quite hot except she had these huge black bags under her eyes) was following a police K9 unit. They were responding to an assault at an underground train station here in Melbourne (looked like Parliament to me). The footage showed a mass of bodies sprawled on the train platform. The police dog (I think it was one of those mean-ass German shepherds) starts barking like crazy. Two of the bodies rise up, it looked like they were hunched over the others, and stare at the newcomers. I could see those creepy yellow eyes again. At this point the dog really starts to lose its mind. It turns on the handler and bites him. The handler screams and drops the dog's lead. The dog is the smartest one there, it flees the scene yelping hysterically. The two yellow eyed freaks start to advance on the police, they don’t seem to move very fast. There was a lot of yelling, I think the cops were telling them to get down on their knees or something, but they didn’t stop advancing. One of the cops eventually fires on the leading freak, hitting it in the chest twice knocking it to the ground. It let out a horrible shriek and started to stand up like nothing ever happened. At this point the police start to retreat, pushing the news people back. The last shot the cameraman got was a close up of the lead freak. There was congealed blood all around its mouth and a flash of wickedly sharp teeth.

  After this Dad sent me to bed, the last thing I heard on my way upstairs was the federal police issuing a statement telling all residents to secure their homes and avoid all travel, especially at night. I tried to ask Dad why those people were all messed up and crazy, but he just yelled, “I told you to go to bed.” I think he is as scared and confused as me.

  I guess I don’t have to go to school tomorrow.

  26th November. 12.22am.

  Facebook just went down. I was chatting with Rory when the browser kicked me out. I tried to log back in, but all I get is ‘access is denied.’ Weird. I then tried gmail but that won’t let me in either. I can still access the news websites though. They are just reporting on what’s happening, there is no information on what’s causing this.

  Rory sounded very worried. His Mum and little sister are really sick. He said he tried to call me on my mobile but he couldn’t get any signal. I just checked mine. I have no signal either.

  26th November. 08.44am.

  Sire
ns woke me up. I think it was a police siren, not sure. Spoke with Dad over a quiet breakfast, couldn’t eat much though. He stayed up all night watching the reports. He reckons it’s getting worse. How could it be worse than what I saw last night? Best not to think too much about that.

  Dad has gone to bed now. I asked if he was going to work. He replied in the negative, said that most of the staff was home sick anyway, plus the TV says to stay home. I wonder if these attacks have anything to do with people getting sick? Seems like it can’t be a coincidence.

  Before Dad retired he said to keep the doors and windows locked, blinds drawn and lights off. I can watch telly as long as I keep the sound down to a minimum. He said to wake him if anything major comes up. Major? The whole situation is major. I see what he means though: the number of ‘incidents’ involving infected people has dramatically tapered off this morning. The TV coverage now is about different experts arguing as to what is the cause of this crisis. There are a lot of conflicting viewpoints. They don’t appear to have a clue. One thing they do agree on is that something is making people sick and this is most likely related to the mass outbreak of assaults. Hold on a sec . . . they just reported that there have not been any new attacks since early this morning. Maybe they’ve got it under control?

  26th November. 14.23pm.

  Dad left the house after we had lunch, tinned spaghetti on toast. A gourmet meal if ever there was one. He wouldn’t let me come with him, said it could be too dangerous. Come on! There hasn’t been any violence since last night. This argument fell on deaf ears though. “I’m your father and while you live in my house, you will obey my rules.” This quieted me down some. I’ve never really heard him talk to me like that before. I guess these events are getting to everyone, even Dad, who is generally quite laid back and unflappable. Is that a word? Wait a moment and I’ll Google it. Yes, it is a word, in your face spell check.

  Anyway Dad came back empty handed. He had intended to go to Coles to get us some supplies, food etc. He was a bit spooked actually, his face was pale and his hand was unsteady as he drank a huge glass of water. I asked him what happened.

  “All the shops are closed, everything. I didn’t see anyone out walking at all. I spotted a fellow driver once or twice. It was such a surreal feeling.” I knew this couldn’t be the only reason why he looked so ashen faced, but I didn’t press him for more information. He kept talking after some more water.

  “I got out of the car at Coles and looked in the windows. The lights were on, but there was no movement inside. The place was deserted. All of a sudden two police cars arrive, screeching to a halt. Three men hopped out. They weren’t police though. They had army fatigues and machine guns. They were also wearing facemasks. You know, like the ones Michael Jackson used to wear.” Dad collapsed onto the couch and ran a shaky hand over his brow.

  “They didn’t say a thing at first. One of them slung his weapon and grabbed me. Bastard nearly broke my arm I reckon. He forced me to my knees, I wasn’t going to resist, not with a gun in my face. The other man turned on his torch, it was connected to the gun, and shone the light in my face. I flinched, shit it was just an automatic reaction, you know?” I nodded, entranced by his story. “The guy behind me tightened his grip and forced my eyes open with his other hand. They shone the light again. Eventually he turned the light off and released me. I didn’t say anything, just stood up. Torch man said, ‘There is a curfew in effect sir. We must insist you return immediately to your premises and remain inside.’ With that they just left. Took off down the street slowly, like they were searching for something. I didn’t hang around, drove straight home.”

  He was pretty quiet after that. I tried to ask a question, but he just grunted so I gave up.

  26th November. 15.17pm.

  Just heard on the telly that all schools have officially been closed. It's typical of the government when you think about it, always behind the eight ball, that’s what Dad says. There probably haven’t been any students attending school for the past few days. A commentator said the bureaucrats just want to appear as if they are doing something. In actual fact they are as helpless and scared as the rest of us.

  I wonder if any kids were still attending my school. It’s hard to believe, especially after the way Dad was accosted by those army guys. I go to the local public high school. I guess I better add where ‘here’ is. Well, ‘here’ is Box Hill, right in the middle of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Dad and I moved to Box Hill right after I finished primary school, about six years ago.

  It’s funny. I never thought I would miss school. I couldn’t tell you how many hours I spent daydreaming in boring classes like social studies, imagining how cool it would be to give school the flick. Just think of all the things I could do. I would even jot down a schedule for my ideal day of leisure. It would look something like this:

  1. Wake up around 10:00am. (Depending on how late I stayed up of course)

  2. Big breakfast of eggs, bacon, the works.

  3. Play the Xbox for a couple of hours till it was time for lunch.

  4. Meet Dad for lunch at the pub (parma and chips!)

  5. Hook up with Rory in the afternoon. I’m thinking we would play some basketball one day, fishing the next, Xbox Live the next.

  6. At night I would take Kelly out to Doncaster shopping centre. We would have some noodles and then catch a movie.

  Now that last one really is wishful thinking. I can barely string two words together while in Kelly’s presence, let alone spend an entire evening together. Ah well, that’s what dreaming is all about, isn’t it? I wonder how she is doing during all this mess?

  26th November. 17.09pm.

  Dad snapped out of his funk. It was quite a flip-flop. One minute he was slumped on the couch staring into space, the next minute he was up and at ‘em. A blur of activity. I love it when he gets in one of his excitable moods. It usually happens when he has had some grand idea.

  The last special project he had was to build us a new coffee table. He was showing me these little plans he had drawn up, with little drawers for remote controls and slots for magazines. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would never work. Most of his big ideas never came to fruition. I honestly believe he gets more enjoyment out of the brainstorming than the execution of the idea. The best part was we got to spend an entire weekend together in the garage trying to put the thing together. It didn’t work of course. The rather sad looking clump of wood is still sitting in a corner of the garage, gathering dust. It doesn’t matter though we had fun hanging out.

  His current idea is a good one: we need to prepare and plan. He set me the task of checking out the food situation. I have sorted the contents of the fridge and cupboards. Here is a breakdown of all the food we have in the house:

  1. Freezer: Half a loaf of bread, 2 steaks.

  2. Fridge: Half a litre of milk, 2 litres of orange juice, 2 carrots, a tub of left over fried rice (about the only thing Dad can cook reliably).

  3. Cupboard: Nearly full box of Cornflakes, 2 packets of two-minutes noodles, 1 can of tomato soup, half a pack of pasta, pasta sauce, 1 onion, 2 packets of chips.

  4. Bench: 2 apples.

  I know what you’re thinking, our cupboards are pretty bare. What do you expect from a household of two guys? We are take-away experts. Dad’s brow furrowed considerably when he read my list. He said we’re going to have to ration the food, make sure it lasts. Nana (that’s Dad’s mum) told me all about rationing during World War 2. We were over their place for dinner when I was a kid. I was kicking up a fuss over eating my greens so she told me a story in that calm, kindly way of hers. She said she would have fought tooth and nail with her sisters over a plate of peas in those days. She said they were hungry all the time, a horrible empty feeling constantly gnawing her belly. Puts it in perspective, doesn’t it? Needless to say I ate all the greens, and have ever since. I have a horrible suspicion that we will have first hand knowledge of how Nana felt in the coming days and weeks. I co
uld tell Dad was thinking the same thing. He obviously didn’t want to worry me, so he quickly changed the subject.

  We set to work on securing the house. Dad quickly ducked outside to the garage and came back with his toolbox, he said it was as quiet as a tomb out there. My task was the curtains. I used duct tape to seal the edges of the curtains to the walls. Dad reckons if we can block all light from inside, no one (or no freaks) on the outside will know we are in here. I also used the tape to seal the cracks around the front and back doors. We don’t know if these things can smell us, but why take the extra risk?

  Finally Dad built this nifty brace to attach to the front door. He cut a lump of wood in a U shape, and nailed it firmly into the floor just behind the door. He then cut another long length of wood about a metre long. He then wedged this piece of timber between the door and the floor piece of wood. Nothing could break that door down from outside. Very ingenious bit of work by the old man. Neither of us mentioned the fragile windows as a possible entry point, but I could tell he was worried about them too.

  I doubt that any of this will stop a mob of those creatures from busting in here, but it gave us something to do. And I do feel a little safer. Only a little.

  26th November. 18.34pm.

  Dad just finished making a few phone calls. Seeing our email and mobile phone communication has gone kaput, the landline is our last remaining outlet. Mum was coherent at least. She is holed up in her unit with that asshole boyfriend of hers. Dad told her to stay put and keep her head down. I could hear the concern in his voice. I hadn’t witnessed that in many years. He wouldn’t let me talk to her and I have to admit I didn’t try very hard to wrestle the phone away from him.

  Next he called Nana and Pop, but got no answer. Dad tried to reassure me that their hearing isn’t very good at the best of times and that they are fine. But I saw his eyes mist up as he hurriedly turned way. I saved him the embarrassment by pretending to leave the room to go to the toilet. When I came back he seemed fine and handed the phone to me, “Try your mate, Rory.” On the third ring the answering machine kicked in. I left a hasty message and handed the phone back to Dad. We both slumped onto the couch. I felt tired and bummed out. I could tell Dad felt the same way.