The Pestilence: The Diary of the Trapped

by Rob Cockerill

  But, as it write this at around 9pm, it feels as though the hard work is just beginning. Jack gave an ominous speech an hour or so ago, largely for my benefit but loud enough to strike fear and anticipation into all of us.

  “You've had it good up here, you did a good job and you kept the two of you safe. I respect that. And maybe, there's a chance that together we can keep us all safe up here for a long time yet. But I've got a bad feeling about that flare. I've got a bad feeling about what's coming. If there's anything at all we need to do, anything we need to get, I think we do it now. We do it now.”

  Those were his words – his exact words. I remember them word perfect. We had been ruefully discussing the fact that there was a stack of food and longer-term provisions back at our apartment, but we had about a 2% chance of getting there and back in one piece. In fact, I think those were my words. We’d also mentioned all of the people we encountered in the church – and the bounty of blankets, rugs and foodstuffs they had too. Waiting until the children had fallen asleep, Jenny and I even showed Jack and Alice the scenes on the surveillance cameras, emphasising the lack of clear opportunity to venture back into Porthreth village.

  But Jack seemed more fired up than anything, and the conversation soon turned from one of regret to seizing the day. And so we are, I think…

  Under Jack’s instruction we’ve retired to bed for an early night, and at first light we’re going to put our heads together for the formation of a plan. By early morning, it’s very likely we’ll be donning our backpacks and weapons, and heading out into the woodland. I haven’t said this often, if at all, during this apocalypse, but it’s one of the few times I’m not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. Most nights, you count as fortunate to have made it through the day and hope to wake up to see another; tonight I fear the morning rolling around again. I don’t want to do it, and I fear we’re leaving the base – and our family – vulnerable to an onslaught. But it’s that very same onslaught that’s driving Jack to this decision.

  Jenny's not comfortable with any of it. She thinks it's all unnecessary risk and keeps bringing up those longstanding concerns she has over whether our 2016, our future, belongs up here anyway. Upon that plethora of thoughts and anxieties, we are expected to sleep. It’s going to be a long night.

  10th May 2016

  Here it is, D-Day. With Jenny and Alice keeping the kids firmly inside the building, in the highest point in the base, the observatory, Jack and I have resolved to head out on two nerve-wracking missions.

  First, to secure a number of blackout blinds and other goods from Jack's abandoned VW van (he very astutely took them when they set off in the road to use each night when they parked up somewhere to mask their presence) and second, to the school to scrounge together as much food and supplies as we might need for a while. If successful, we may even chance our arms at a visit to our old apartment. But, I fear it could literally be chancing our arms, with the hive of corpses activity we’ve studied on the cameras.

  I refrained from using the term ‘last goodbyes’ but we both dedicated some time this morning to our loved ones and seemingly telling them everything we ever wanted to say to them. I was certainly succumbing to that emotion far more than Jack; he wouldn’t show it even if he was feeling it. But there was definitely a shared sentiment of overwhelming fear and remorse, almost. I could tell Jenny and our baba bump a thousand times this morning how much I love them both, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Unfortunately for us, it has to be.

  With daunting thoughts and a sinking feeling, I post this entry and shut down the laptop for another day, reader. I hope I’ll be connecting with you again in the next few days. If you’re out there surviving too, don’t give up the fight. Stay strong.

  15th May 2016

  I'm back, and I don't think I've been as pleased to be in the bosom of the base's imprisonment since the day we first arrived here.

  We finally returned a couple of days ago. Jack and I had been on the road together for almost two days; two bloody, brutal and breaking days for the both of us. Despite everything that Jenny and I have been through since mid-January and the gory kills that still vividly haunt me in the dark of the night, I’ve not endured such a violent, grisly 40 hours in my life.

  The urgency of our task and return to the base meant that we couldn't apply the care and consideration we would normally have used in the woodland; we had to pound through the puddles and gullies that still prevailed from April's storms and incessant showers, with the knowledge that every squelch and splash underfoot would be reverberating in the eardrums of the undead like a fatal jungle drum. We would have preferred maximum stealth, but our need to get back to the base and be there for an impending attack compromised our strategy. We had no choice but to hurry and hope for the best.

  We actually made it quite far before our first encounter. The wooden play equipment 'castle' that Jenny and I reluctantly slept in for a few nights was but a stone’s throw away, and Jack's VW Transporter was in sight when our vision suddenly became filled with pained corpses baying for blood. These were angry biters, fierce and foreboding with every snarl and sniff, menacing with each lurch forward, and somehow more ruthless-looking than most others. Perhaps they were hungered; perhaps it was the amount of barren time spent searching for flesh. Whatever it was, they seemed like a hungrier and more aggressive conclave of cadavers, each just as selfish and single-minded in their determination to rip us to shreds for themselves.

  That was the downfall of at least half of the 20-strong pack – they showed an almost human indecision, not able to choose which of our warm, juicy bodies they wanted to puncture and prise open first. That confusion allowed Jack and I to pick the first advancers off, my heavy chain particularly effective in whipping straight through three of them in one hit. Jack nearly despatched two in close combat with his fists and, ultimately, feet alone – delivering crushing blows to the head in a single stamp of his steel toecap clad feet.

  The rest were a lot trickier. Two were able to pin me down before I could whip up enough energy in the chain to give it a good swing. I fell to the ground with a thump, black muddy fluid spraying up in the air and raining back down on me amidst the putrid puss-laden saliva of the two corpses. I was about to be tag-team mutilated alive when Jack literally pulled them both from me and proceeded to take turns in kicking seven shades of shit out of each of them.

  When we were finally rid of frenzied company for a few minutes and could catch our breath, I realised the sorry state that the VW was in. In addition to a flat tyre, and a lack of both fuel and power, it sat there looking pretty beaten throughout the exterior. There were even russet red hand prints strewn down the side of the van, hinting at a desperate, bloody struggle that had taken place.

  Jack looted the VW for the blackout blinds and blankets he had sought before we left, and any other useful items from gloves boxes and compartments, and we trudged away to our next stop – the school. When we arrived there a few hours later after several more near-death experiences and little conversation, it presented us with a haul of goodies to take back with us. From full-blown catering supplies in the canteen kitchen, of both the ‘fresh’ and preserved type, to books and toys and even spare clothes in the lost property box, we filled our heavy-duty rucksacks with as much as we could squeeze in. Those were good moments; Jack even cracked a nervous smile.

  But all was not what it seemed. We disturbed an awry cadaver in the kitchen which proceeded to clatter and clang among an array of discarded pots, pans and utensils and drew unwelcome attention to the building. Jack waded in and put the blood-thirsty attacker out of its misery with a deft punch and blunt dagger combination. We thought the damage was done as a trio of scholarly stiffs furiously fumbled their way toward us down classroom corridors, but there was to be more in store. As we worked our way through the advancing corpses, the bells began ringing out loud above us. My heart definitely skipped a beat before it sank fast and deep as it dawned on me that this could be the
end.

  We had found neither sight nor sound of the mystery bell-ringer upon approaching the school, yet we were soon left in doubt about their whereabouts. More to the point, we faced very real questions about our own existence beyond those moments. Why the fuck was he ringing the bells? Why did he get to issue our death warrant? Was it someone we knew? Jack’s usual ice cool, ‘I don’t give a shit’ exterior dropped – I could tell he was just as terrified as me. Our hearts were suddenly in sync as we genuinely feared we would see our family again.

  All we could do was frantically pull the doors shut all around us, barricade ourselves in and hope to ride out the inevitable onslaught of the undead. Within seconds, we could hear a chorus of hungered groaning getting closer and closer. The bells kept ringing ever vociferously and the undead gained in numbers around us. We crouched down below the windows in the reception class and hid. After everything we had been through, after all of the shit we had survived and the sanctuary we had built up, we found ourselves hiding yet again. Juvenile chairs stacked up against the door; we pitifully hid. And that’s how we stayed for the rest of the night, imprisoned and taunted by the sound of the undead beating down on doors, windows and walls all around us. Endless groaning and yearning, relentless thudding and drumming of borrowed time biters beating at the building. As lonely tears rolled down my face and I attempted to hide them from Jack, I began to wonder if it was us that had been surviving on borrowed time.

  By dawn, we sensed a minor relief in corpse attention and an opening to the rear of the building. Snaking our way through the school’s corridors on our stomachs, we slipped under the radar and out of a backdoor out into the playground – and ran for our lives. Even Jack, grimacing through the pain of his wounded shin, moved through the gears as if his life depended on it, because it did. Once we were safely out of striking distance, we legged up over the fence and bolted back across the litter-ridden road into the woodland. We never did see the bell-end bell-ringer that so nearly left our loved ones without husband or father. And we didn’t waste time looking back, either for him or for a route to the apartment I once shared with Jenny. The village was teeming with savage corpses, more hungered and impatient than ever – there was no way we could have reached the apartment, and I don’t think either of us wanted to try, not really.

  With the attention of Porthreth’s skeletal population focused on the school, the dense woodland was relatively clear and we made firm progress toward the base. Even so, it was still an intolerably long and arduous trek punctuated by pauses for Jack to rest his weary leg. Throughout the day there was no visual sign of the anticipated walkers wandering parallel to us in pursuit of the flare several days earlier, but there was a lot of birds flying overhead as if fleeing or displaced. As we neared the base, there was also a gradually increasing aura of tireless moaning and groaning. We told ourselves that after our panicked exertions, we were likely reading too much into things. But, as we finally made it back safe in the dead of the night – shattered, traumatised and truly drained – we soon realised that we were not.

  There was no time to dine out on the veritable treasure trove of food supplies we brought back, or stare longingly into the eyes of our family we were so relieved to see. The undead had arrived. What army of cadavers wasn’t trained on the school was thrashing and thronging at the perimeter fence, howling and growling throughout the night in angered bloodlust. No-one slept that night, and few of us have really rest since. We’re three days into the unrelenting crowding of the base, and only now have I felt able to take half an hour to pen this epistle to you, reader. Jack, Jenny and I have been marshalling the defences and doing our utmost to keep the children – comforted by Alice – both safe and sane. Long days give way to even longer nights.

  Jack was right, and I'm glad I listened. We’re both glad we left on our haunting supply run when we did. With hundreds of corpses hounding the gates and piling huge pressure on the eastern fencing as I write, we were fortunate to find our way back to the camp in time to protect the others. For now we live to survive another day. How many more of those we have depends on how long those defences can hold.

  16th May 2016

  Did I really say I was delighted to be back in the bosom of the base’s imprisonment?

  We're still waiting it out. Eating, drinking, and not at all being merry. Passing the time by idly chatting, almost. It’s as lonely and traumatising as ever – and there seems little light at the end of the tunnel just yet. It is quite literally dark; any window or opening that once allowed the life of daylight into the building has been extinguished with those blackout blinds we retrieved from Jack’s VW a few days ago. I feel for the children, who are not only ‘living’ like mushrooms, but clearly know that we trying to fill the suspense with distractive conversation.

  Amongst the idle chit-chat, we learned more about Jack's journey since the outbreak – but only as much as he wanted us to know, and only what he was prepared to bring up in front of Nic, Tam and Riley. He still hasn't told us where he led them, exactly. Well, not at all really. He just won't reveal it. He said there were three places on his list of hideouts to head for when ‘this shit got real’ back in January.

  One of those was here at the military base on Old Hill. The other was Porthreth Vean House, and the third option on that list he will not disclose. Whatever the venue or location, it must have been good – it must have had more going for it than here, at least on the face of it. To be fair, Jack said a big reason he chose that place over here were his fears that there would already be military here – and they might have received a hostile reception, or worse.

  I just can't work out where that mystery place would be, or why it didn't work out there. He said they had to keep relying on short-term supply runs and eventually ran out of luck, with the VW running out of fuel too. Hence, they ended up on the road and, ultimately, without Lucinda. I have a feeling that was around the time of her loss, actually. Wherever it was, the children very obviously don’t want to talk about it yet either – and there’s no way we want to know that badly that we actually ask them.

  Jack does speak with high regard of Porthreth Vean House, but clearly didn't think it was good enough to head there in the first place. From what I can gather and my own limited knowledge of the place, it's an imposing, substantial listed residence that actually sits just behind our old apartment.

  It was listed for sale not long before the outbreak and around the same time as Jenny and I were house hunting; that seems like a long time ago now. If I remember rightly, it’s of late Georgian construction with attached residence originally erected by the Bassett family of neighbouring village and woodlands, Tretiddy. I think it was actually a Listed Grade II building, such is its stature, as a construct of special historic Interest – or something like that. I can’t remember the exact sales spiel, but I know it was a very grand building with an illustrious history and structure, set over two acres and including a couple of basement flats. Given its standing and wealth of living options, it might be worth keeping in mind should this sanctuary of ours ever be compromised. That’s if the distinguished house isn’t overcome itself, of course. That’s always a gamble you have to take.

  What Jack still won't speak of is Lucinda. He still wouldn't open up about her, not out in the road with me or in here in the base with Jenny. The thing is, not only do you not question Jack Stephens when he says something like that, we also know that the likelihood of something unjustifiably savage and undignified happening in these macabre times is so high that often you don't want to probe further anyway. The children only cry uncontrollably at the very mention of their mother. They do at least have Alice, who seems to keep them on track and entertained, most of the time, but the close confinement and torture here only highlights the vicious ordeal they’re going through.

  17th May 2016

  This is not a world for children. It’s a menacing, unhappy, threatening place – and the kids are really not happy. I've watched them closely since
they’ve been here, and especially so over the last few days while we've all been cooped up together. That inherent fearlessness of a child is quashed, walked over and destroyed, leaving them inhibited. It's not even true to say that they are ironically suited to this world with their ability to duck and dive biters at every turn through their diminutive figures and age/appropriate speed and agility – that just isn't true at all. They're too terrified and too clumsy, too unaware almost, and would easily fall prey to just one outstretched limb, one desperate claw that soon becomes a score of hungered carcasses bearing down on them.

  If they’re not in a permanent state of potential peril outside, they’re imprisoned in here with blackout blinds masking their presence and shrouded in feelings of doom and boredom. Jenny and Alice are the only one’s keeping them going at the moment. We’re all doing our bit of course, but Jack and I are constantly monitoring the building’s defences and keeping watch over the whole site from the observatory, and when we’re not doing that we’re trying to keep an eye on the surveillance system to see if the scene down in the village is any better – or if we can catch sight of that shitbag bell-ringer that almost got us killed at the school several days ago. We try to make time to spend with the kids and I’ve certainly been making a concerted effort of that myself, but I do feel like only Jenny and Alice are really getting through to them at the moment.