The Pestilence: The Diary of the Trapped

by Rob Cockerill

  We haven’t told them the full extent of devastations outside, despite their many lines of questioning toward us, I don’t think this group could take it. Nor have we declared the food rations we have in our bags or the wireless dongle that’s allowing me to upload this entry. How they have survived here is beyond me. I can’t believe they haven’t either cracked up yet or surrendered to the cold that has clearly penetrated every crevice of the ageing building. They have little food or drink, little ambition and, in my opinion, little hope. We just need to regroup and re-route ourselves again.

  18th February 2016

  Exposed. I think that’s my word of the day.

  As I write this it is 11am and we have now spent our first night in the church with the other 20 villagers huddled in here, toughing it out against all odds. We spent much of the night reflecting on yesterday’s do-or-die mission to leave our apartment. Well, I did at least. Jenny has slept a lot, a great deal more than in the last few weeks, that’s for sure.

  We’ve been exposed to so much in the last few days, it has really taken it out of her and she needs to rest. I think there might also be some sense of safety in numbers, of community, and that has enabled Jenny to really let go and get into a deep sleep. It must have had something to do with it, because there’s not a lot else going for this church hideaway right now.

  The cutting chill in the air is wrapped around the building like a python strangling its prey. The revered old building feels beleaguered and battle-weary, chilled to the core and with dank air emanating from its every fissure. The exposed brickwork inside the church is just as cold as its counterparts to the exterior, providing little comfort amongst the blankets and sleeping bags that we are nestled in.

  To be fair to them, our fellow survivors have done their best to shore the place up. While walkers and the wind chill batter the building from the outside, groping and weathering the walls like tide smothers the shoreline, we have heavy wooden pews, blankets and drapes reinforcing it inside. The once immovable pews are positioned as ballast for the thick and surely impregnable oak doors, while the blankets, duvets and throws provide screens for the stained glass windows and creases of the building, stifling signs of light to the outside and doubling up as insulation for the community camped inside.

  Mini convection heaters, on two-hour shifts are plugged into every available socket, but are only succeeding in keeping a very low base level of heat at the moment. Sleeping bags, pillows and cushions adorn the cold oak flooring flattered only by a makeshift carpet of towels and rugs and, in sparse patches, aerobic mats. It would be cosy and communal if it wasn’t so clinical. But it is, of course.

  The collective desire to stay alive – and maintain the sanctity of the church – resonates throughout the group, that’s clear to us after just one night here. But the make-do-and-mend drapes and crumpled fabrics used as under-door draft excludes do little to really shelter the group from either the penetrating cold or the agitated corpses outside. It’s a dry rasping air that just seems to permeate every man-made obstacle. And the presence of the zombies at the door and at the backs of our minds is inescapable.

  The undead really are growing more and more aggressive now. They are looking as starved and gruesome as ever. Their unquenching thirst for fresh blood had spurred them on for so many days, ravaging through town after town as they had, but it’s now four weeks since the outbreak and for some, the meal vouchers have largely dried up in the last fortnight. Either everyone has been converted to living corpses, or survivors like us are getting cleverer, waiting it out or managing to avoid their attacks. It’s making them restless, hungered, and desperate for the merest suggestion of flesh, so much so that the hordes of them outside seem to be reignited from their near dormancy of the last few days. Everyone here is exposed to their yearnings and unrelenting pestering outside.

  Despite that, this band of brothers appears content to stay, for now. They don't seem to have the same sense of imprisonment as we do and, as we gradually answer more and more of their questions, the feeling grows that they would rather keep themselves locked in here until it all blows over. It’s not going to blow over.

  We haven't told them that we'll be slipping out of here again today, as soon as the coast is clear for us to make our exit out of the conservatory door.

  19th February 2016

  Am I really a killer? Really? I don’t think I am, not in the popular sense of the term. When I felled Andrew’s corpse a few days ago, it was exactly that – a corpse. It was not a human life that I had taken, it was merely a shell of Andrew’s former being. It was not a life at all. So does that really change me?

  That’s a question that another night here in the church has allowed to weigh heavy on me. I thought it about it for hours last night, as Jenny continued to rest and recuperate in this mini community of trapped survivors. Against my better judgement, she convinced me to stay for another couple of days, just while she comes to terms with everything we seem to have been through this week and prepares to ‘go again’ in search of the trail.

  I’m happy to give her time, I couldn’t ask much more of her after all, but I don’t particularly want to be here. It’s too soft, too accepting of what’s going on. There’s no ambition to find something better, to find answers. And yet, Jenny and I seem to be the subject of an intensifying amount of questions from the group, in some kind of post-apocalyptic show and tell sessions.

  · What’s it like outside?

  · What did you see?

  · How did you survive?

  · Was my house overrun?

  · Did you see Peter/Adam/Leanne/Dave/Cory/Lara?

  · Do you think help is coming? Will anyone come to rescue us here in Porthreth?

  · Have you heard about an antidote?

  · Do you think it’s getting better or worse out there?

  Those are just some of the questions we’ve faced in the last 12 hours or so – and they just seem to keep coming. I can’t and won’t answer them all. As I said before, I think this group of individuals is fragile and submissive and I’m not sure they could take some of the grim realities that we might deliver to them.

  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 carefu
lly 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.