The Infected

by Gregg Cocking

  I have called it a day early and have found myself a nice comfortable bed inside a bed shop in a little town called something like De Aar (although it’s not De Aar because then I would have overshot Bloemfontein by a couple of hundred kilometres).

  Have a good evening all.

  Take care,

  Sam W

  5:18pm, September 28

  According to the GPS I am a mere 50 kilometres from Bloemfontein. Fifty fucking kilometres! I could walk there if I wanted to! Even just thinking about it and writing about it, I am trembling with excitement!

  I have now been on the road for like two weeks, and what a flipping exhausting two weeks it has been… the roads have been a mess – a lot more of a mess than I would have thought. If it was not for multi-car pile-ups, pot holes the size of small cars, collapsed bits of roads and bridges, overturned trucks… then I would have already been there for ages. After hearing what Lil had to say, I had prepared myself for a long trip, but hell, nowhere near as long as this.

  The car has been good – very good in fact – but if anyone from Audi is reading this, please try make a 4x4 version of the R8, or at the very least increase the clearance of the car as I could have done with a bit of off road capability! I still have a good deal of fuel left as I have been, when alone without any of the infected around, refilled all my balloons when I have come across suitable abandoned cars.

  I have also got to listen to a ton of music and have found some driving favourites – remember Marcy Playground? They had a hit with Sex & Candy and then disappeared? Well, not quite – they released three albums of great, melodic indie rock. Perfect for driving. And A? Shite name, great sing-a-long guitar driven music. And what about Ash? Fantastic tunes from gonzo punk to string led ballads.

  There’s been so much that has just made the trip memorable, not least of which was Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms. Stop sniggering… I had my iPod on random when this song, on some compilation album that I have, came on. It was just perfect – I was travelling well, probably the best that I had all day and had an open road in front of me. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon to my left and I was racing to find a safe place to sleep. When the song started it took me a while to figure out who it was, but the eeriness, emptiness and loneliness of the song just pulled my heartstrings, and before I knew it, I was crying, the tears streaming down my face. “Let me bid you farewell. Every man has to die.” What a great lyric. Powerful – as if they had written it for such a setting. I was so enthralled by the song that I hardly even noticed the farmhouse down a gravel road off to the right. I would play it now to myself, but I reckon that that would just cheapen my memories, so I’ll put on some Viva Brother!

  I am going to spend tonight, hopefully (and surely) my last out here on my own, in a small back office of a small department store – I have parked my car around the back, just below the office’s window, and am safely behind a locked security gate. It won’t be my most comfortable sleep ever, but I know that it will be one of my best.

  Sweet dreams everybody.

  Sam W

  12:59pm, September 29

  Oh my word. I have made it… can you fucking believe it! (I’ve become quite the potty mouth since that fateful day when this all started, haven’t I?) I am here and I can see the large walled off area of the city that Lil mentioned in her mails. I also came across all the signs and spray painted directions which she had pointed out, and eventually, I have made it here to safety. About two hundred metres away. That’s how close I am.

  Wow… I am getting a bit teary eyed. I know it’s only been two weeks and so many other people have gone on amazing journeys, much harder than this (yet probably not being the fancied snack of every living thing), like that guy that walked across America just because he wanted to, or that teenage girl who sailed solo around the world. Or those four dudes who flew to the moon. You know what I mean. But… for me… a freelance graphic designer who has so far accomplished absolutely nothing in his life, doing this has been… well, it’s been tough. Fucking tough. But I have loved every minute of it.

  It has given me time to think about life and reflect on what I had before – my family, my friends, my superior taste in music… I have lost some people. Well, that’s quite an understatement… I have lost a ton of people. It has been the worst spell of my life, or anyone’s life for that matter, but, believe it or not, I am beaming from ear to ear today. I am going to see my girl and I am going to be safe.

  If this journey has taught me anything it is Fuck! The gate is opening! I didn’t even see that there! There are three people coming out and walking towards me. No, make that four. And they are… what the hell are they wearing? Space suits… Bloody hell. I don’t know what you’d call them, but they are wearing those suits that you see in movies. All I can think of to explain them to you is like those ones worn in that scene in ET when ET is caught and quarantined… that’s what they are wearing.

  Shit! I had so much to say! Judging by what they are wearing and their demeanor, I doubt I’ll be able to take my computer in with me, or for that matter, anything… so I guess that this is it…

  Thank you for being there – even if I never met you – just having you (possibly) on the other end of some transglobal wireless connection reading my words on a computer screen helped me more than you will ever know.

  They’re closing in now – maybe fifty metres away. Their pristine white suits are glistening in the sun as they walk like hundreds of thousands of diamonds.

  Okay… let me wrap this up. Be safe – I hope that you are. And don’t be despondent – If I could do it, anyone can.

  Alright – twenty metres…

  Oh, you may be wondering what I wrote on that note for Lil that I gave to Marie? Just five words, “See you soon my wife.”

  They’re at the car and one of them is openi tfj6rrcv9 9V6R759IBO n ,..

  2:15pm, October 20

  I am alive and well people of the cyber world!

  I don’t know how long I have as I shouldn’t really be using this computer, but I couldn’t resist. Wow! The twentieth of flipping October! I had no idea what the date was or how long I had been here until I saw the date on the computer now in this office. Man… it feels like I have been here for ages, but not as long as that, if you know what I mean?

  Cool, so I am on cleaning duty here – it’s like a whole new civilization really, where we all have our roles to ensure that everyone does the best for the ‘Human Community’ as someone with absolutely no imagination decided to call us. I had seen the computer in this office before and had earmarked it to check if I could access the internet on it, seeing as my Apple had been taken away and destroyed – but more on that later – as I have not seen any other computers in our entire enclave. It doesn’t really get used often – the office or the computer – but I needed to make sure that the time was right. And today it is. Graeme, who seems to use the office the most, a stern army-type of a guy who is one of those in charge of perimeter security, has been out on a patrol of the wall all day to check for possible weak spots and to repair and rectify them. So that’s why I am here, typing on an old Acer machine on an old wooden desk riddled with cigarette burns, and luckily, connected to the world wide web. I tell you – cockroaches and the internet – nothing can kill them…

  So let me start at the start. When I last spoke/typed, I was being greeted by the welcoming party of ET extras. And yes, they took my Macbook, my clothes, my supplies… my car… and by all accounts, burned them. Me? Well, as I suspected, I was put in quarantine. But only for an hour or so, before I was allowed a shower and given new clothes – a Cheetahs rugby jersey… if anyone knows me, they’ll know that I am the furthest thing from a rugby fan. In fact, I have never watched a single game of the sport. So I had to laugh.

  And then I was paraded as ‘the most recent survivor’ to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. And I spotted Lil immediately.

  She hadn’t changed a bit. I cried like a baby and p
ushed my way through the throng of well wishers. When we finally reached each other, which seemed to take forever, we kissed and hugged for what seemed like, well, forever. The crowd around us cheered and patted us on the back, but we couldn’t let go of each other. I have never felt like that in my life before – it was such a sense of warmth and joy and completeness. It was awesome.

  As things died down we chatted and chatted, talking for hours, well into the night, and in between I was greeted by so many people, the people who I now live with and rub shoulders with daily as we try to make sense of what has happened to the world. That day I met Lil’s fellow travelers – Lourens and Sandra and the kids Luke and Paige, as well as Corne and Derek – all amazing folk and I thanked each and every one of them for playing their part in getting Lily here safely. You know how you build up pictures in your mind of what people look like? Well I was way, way off. For all six of them.

  Since then I have amalgamated myself into this new community of Bloemfontein survivors and try and help where I can – I have helped in the extensive veggie garden that provides a lot of our food and do security patrols probably more often than I should, but I kinda like it. Lil and I live together in a small apartment off to the south side of our walled off space. It’s not how I imagined it would be – wait, maybe that came out wrong. I am loving living with Lil and enjoy waking up next to her every day and smelling her scent everywhere in our place. What I meant was, when I originally pictured us living together, it was in the old world, with TV, getting takeaways and watching DVD’s all night, drinking beer (although one guy here is experimenting with brewing our own – they had been dry here for months before I arrived – and he is getting quite close), but I do love living with my fiancé. We haven’t set a date for the wedding, purely because no one uses dates much anymore, but we have found a minister willing to marry us when we are ready.

  What else? Oh, I have given up the smokes. But that’s purely because, like the booze, they had run out of them ages before I got here, so you can lower that ‘high five’ hand, I had no choice. We still get the odd survivor who gets here (look at me referring to us as ‘we’ now – I am seriously integrated into the ‘Human Community’ aren’t I?). But the alarm that signals new arrivals is getting more and more sporadic. Infected wise, there are not too many in this area and we rarely have any trouble, but even then, there is enough artillery here to take down a small country – these Afrikaners here sure liked their guns…

  For electricity they have come up with a really nifty plan which supplies us with enough power to get the basics done on a daily Shit. Someone’s coming, one of Graeme’s cronies…

  Okay, he’s gone but it sounds like they are on their way back so I better go.

  Just know that all is well here, this place is real, and you can be safe. Out of the reach of the infected.

  See ya

  Sam W

  Ground Mission still unable to find signs of life. The search for survivors continues. Comms from UN Ground Mission, Reconnaissance Team 12 ends.