The site personifies safety and the best thing about it is, we’re on the inside.
We ended up enduring a tough time of getting in; the gates were firmly locked shut and in the absence of any bolt cutters to hand, we had a difficult time of scaling the perimeter fence with Jenny’s damaged ankle. It was no mean feat getting up and over, and being unable to really cushion her jump to the ground once on the other side. She winced and almost broke down in pain there and then, but there was no time – we had to keep moving in case there were any starved corpses waiting around the base. We beat a hasty path to the first door we could find, and eventually broke our way in. Actually, once we’d tackled the fence, it was surprisingly easy to penetrate the building itself.
And so, we were in. It had taken hours of strategising how to overcome the obstacles we faced, and I know today’s diary entry has been a long time coming, reader, so you may have thought we were waylaid in the woods again, but this is the zombie apocalypse – you simply have to find a way in.
It’s exactly what I had hoped for, and I think it exceeds Jenny’s expectations, whatever they really were. We spent several hours staking the place out, exploring every room we can find, hunting down cadavers that weren’t there behind every heavy steel door, knives in hands, naturally. This place is huge, seriously huge. We’ve covered as much of the building as we can and no-one seems to be here, living or otherwise, but Jenny needed to rest up so we’ve made camp in the base’s living quarters for the night. Her ankle is badly swollen, she’s flat out asleep, and we made a pact not to go off exploring on our own, so I thought I would use this time to write.
Appearances can be deceptive, but the base has all the hallmarks of a safe haven: remote location; fortified; and a worthy stronghold that we could begin to build a new life of survival around. The last few days and weeks have shown us that this is no longer our world. Life as we knew it belonged to the dead now; we’re simply hiding in the shadows. This place might just be a big enough shadow for us to get lost in for a little while.
There’s a functioning cabled Internet port here, which I’m making the most of, and if there are any active radar communications from the huge golf ball-like domed beacon to the rear, then longer-term survival might be possible. We’re going to check out the station’s command centre tomorrow to see what’s online or offline. My guess is the latter; we seem to be alone here, to our surprise there were no military personnel waiting to mob us, nor any vigilante survivors like ourselves that had already lay claim to it. On that basis, I’m thinking that the site’s facilities might not be worth risking the journey for. I’m hopeful they are, we have to be, but I do wonder why there’s no-one here. Has anyone been here during the apocalypse? Was it abandoned? If so, why?
Another question we have is, where are Jenny’s family? We thought they would be here. We definitely hoped they would. But there’s been no sign of them either here or en route, except for a lot of the displaced earth and evidence of footfall on the tramway, perhaps. I haven’t brought it up with Jenny yet, but I know she’s thinking the same. It’s the inevitable elephant in the room.
For now, I’m focusing on the task in hand. We still have some far off sections of the building to properly explore, and there were several locked doors that we couldn’t begin to prise open – so we have some questions and concerns about what they might lead to. And I already have ideas about what needs to be done to build a future here, if that’s what we intend to do.
The fence may need some working on – more able individuals might find entry to the base far easier than we did – and I would actually be keen to dig out a perimeter trench beyond the fencing too, once Jenny is back to full health. That’s a two-man job; one digging and one on lookout. We’d be keen to engender survival and community up here, but we have to be wary of strangers as well as the undead. Hence, beefing up the breaches.
Weapons aside, safety and security is the only currency in this callous new world – and this could prove to be the safest piece of real estate for miles around. So we have to safeguard it against not just the dead, but the living too. They could be just as dangerous. We’ve seen what it’s like since this shit all kicked off – its territorial now, dog eat dog. Society's gone, and we can’t take any chances.
4th March 2016
I’m so relieved we’re here, I really am. Having strode confidently through the woodland as if battle hardened and brave, when I was in fact battle weary and less than brazen, I couldn’t maintain that mask much longer.
The torturous journey through the kinks and contortions of the trail were beginning to take their toll, and the freezing cold elements coupled with injuries we’d picked up meant that our vulnerability was forcing the issue. We needed somewhere to seek refuge.
Three times in our last hour out in the timbers we had found ourselves fending off advances from passing corpses, either hiding in deep pockets of scrubland or creating noisy diversions for onrushing corpses to blindly follow. We had a feeling a bigger pack was not that far away, and to hang back in the woods for another hour might compromise us altogether. Jenny was feeling particularly pensive and with every zombie kill that she watched me claim, I know she wondered if I would be so successful the next time. I had stepped up for sure, and I have the faces of every kill etched into my consciousness, but I’m no warrior.
We needed safety. When we finally achieved it, opening up before us were countless square meters of tarmac ribbons and grasslands of pale greens and yellows. I’m still taken aback by the sheer scale of the site today, 24 hours on, and we will need to scout it all out over the coming days.
The somehow idyllic vista is flanked to the left by what appears to be a giant white radar dome and to the right, a number of square block concrete buildings. All of which sits inside the enclosure of a lattice wire fencing festooned with bright red ‘warning’ signs at 30-feet intervals. Behind it lies the perilous woodland that we spent days trekking through.
From within this vast expanse of the military base, it seems almost as if nothing is wrong with the world. We look on at unfettered lawns and grassy knolls, while light blue skies belie the gruelling winter that has so ravaged the village to date and, even if a little clichéd, faint birdsong can be heard from the distance, carried on the sea winds. It’s the kind of scene that leaves us in disbelief that we actually managed to negotiate the precarious path through Porthreth and the surrounding copse unscathed. It also makes us question if it was all real; if the world really has gone to a frenzied, bloodied shit after all.
But it has. Up here is, perhaps quite literally, the calm after the storm. We’ve spent much of today picking up where we left off yesterday, taking zone by zone and room by room as we sweep through the site and attempt to establish if we really are the only ones here. I’m still not entirely sure, and it makes me nervous to think that we both fell into a deep sleep in the living quarters last night. We propped a table and chairs against the door for reinforcement, but had anyone or anything been here, I’m certain we would have been taken by surprise in the dead of the night.
We’ve seen some strange sights as we work our way through the building, from abandoned test tubes and vials to burnt documents and chaotic dorms. We’ve found a couple of light firearms in lockers so far and I’m convinced there must be more to come, once we’ve checked out every locker, every cupboard, and every nuance of every room.
I’m also growing confident that this place was occupied until very recently. The disordered dorms hint at a hasty, unplanned exit; the guns we picked up did not seem particularly dusty or discarded; and there were some cluttered, scruffy diagrams lying around in the main control centre that appear to depict the school. Jenny thinks I’m reading too much into everything, but I’m not so sure. Not for the first time, I have more questions than answers and can’t help but theorise about it all. My new biggest question being, if this place was in use until just a few days or weeks ago, why was it left abandoned? Surely it is an impregnable fortres
s during such times – so why would its inhabitants have left?
We’ve not encountered anyone else here yet, nor have we had to wield our kitchen knives in anger, but there have been a couple of occasions in quieter moments where we thought we were hearing things, and there are still several heavy steel doors that we cannot find a way through. But we’re fine for now and we’re safe warm, so we’ll eat and drink to that this evening.
5th March 2016
As we continue to explore the site here at the military base, we’ve branched out into the open and are surveying the site’s exterior features.
We came across several designated dumping sites (marked A-D), presumably for the disposal (and burning) of hazardous materials judging by the receptacles and warning signs that they comprise of. It all adds to the picture we’re painting here of some very recent chemical activities, what with the scene inside the laboratories and the torched paper trails. Rumours of present day actions had occasionally been the talk of the town below, but to all intents and purposes this was for decades an out-of-service installation.
We’ve seen something else to suggest that all might not be as it once seemed. For a start, there’s a strip of tarmac that’s home to a handful of navy-luminescent liveried 4X4 vehicles, each equipped with biohazard suits, light firearms and various other preparatory tools. And, although barely visible to the naked eye from the runway, there are scatterings of spent shotgun shells littering the grass mounds that push out to the far corners of the fencing. So was the base in some sort of use after all? Were they from a training exercise, perhaps, or did something go down here?
Our site checks have taken us to all four corners of the installation, something that Jenny did not really thank me for as she still nurses a sore ankle. But we can now rest assured that there are no breaches of the perimeter fence, and having found a set of keys to the gates inside one of the 4X4’s, we are in control of the robust gates that guard the camp.
As we reviewed the acreage, however, we were chilled to the core by something we really hadn’t expected. It was back, again, the corpse that stalks us in body and mind. It was just stood there, seemingly waiting outside the fence, salivating and haemorrhaging pussy viscera all at once. Did it follow us up here somehow, or is it just coincidence? If it can follow us up here, then what else might it be capable of? Could it get past the fence? Do we need to sleep with one eye open again?
We’ve never been so close to it, or so unnerved by it. Its cumbersome yet increasingly starved, gut-spilled frame just stood there watching and waiting, twitching and spasmodic. The fence belied the distance between us. Rage seemed to circle deeply in its eyes, its teeth grated and gnawed on the air. Drips of congealed crimson blood and other fatal fluids seeped down its subjugated clothing. Anger audibly intensified and the corpse’s snarling mouth snapped and clamped on the air as its fixed gaze continued, its bloodlust for us visibly escalating the longer it considered our gory mutilation. It was teetering on the edge of restraint and looked ready to launch itself toward us at any second, sending us running back to the dull grey concrete command centre for shelter.
Through the strained vision of binoculars, we watched as it continued to grow hostile, spitting and scowling in our direction and again tilting its head in consideration – as if it knew we were still watching. This one corpse chills us like no other, and it hasn’t even actually attacked us yet. The gates are locked, the fence is secure, the doors are firmly bolted here, and we’re going to retreat to the living quarters.
6th March 2016
Here we are, freely moving between rooms, one light off and another immediately on, another light on and another turned off, all without thought or care. It’s just like life used to be, without a single second thought.
In any other circumstance right now, this would be a disco dinner call for the hungry corpses outside – but here at the military installation on Old Hill, the remote seclusion gives us a sense of liberty and autonomy we’ve seldom had in 2016.
To put it into perspective, Jenny is draped over a leather armchair here in the library, resting up her ankle with some light reading for relaxation, while I sit huddled on the camping mat on the other side of the room, nestled in blankets for comfort. The well-appointed if not dank depths of the building afford a certain separation from the horrors outside.
But let’s not forget that we are, to all intents and purposes, trapped here. We’re still imprisoned. The only difference is, that this is the best kind of trapped we’ve been since this all began on 17th January.
Vicious, violent corpses meandering in increasing numbers outside, snapping and snarling with bloodlust. They are hungered, pained almost, and desperate to sink their gaunt fingers and mangled teeth into whatever flesh they can find. Our scent or presence must have been drifting on the air en route to the base, such is the number of the undead that have found their way to the very same destination. Either that or there really was a large flock of the infected passing through the woodland as we suspected several days ago. We did well to get here when we did; I know we would not have survived if confronted by such numbers.
Amidst them all, stands the one seemingly cerebral cadaver that drives fear into us like no other. The silent, stalking walker is seriously freaking us out now. It seems to move overnight from one part of the concourse to the other, all the while still staring intently. It’s like the lights are on, but no-one is at home. Or are they? We watched close up yesterday as it visibly became more and more aggressive and agitated. It wanted to severe our sinews from limb to limb, you could see it all in its eyes – it yearned to devour of every last morsel of fleshy tissue we had to offer. Yet it didn’t, or couldn’t. Depending upon which of those it is that restrains it so, we are terrified at the thought of what that one corpse could be capable of.
Though we’re entirely safe here, we’re keeping a low profile right now and making the most of that ability to live and move freely, unnoticed, within the core of the building. We keep shifts in the observatory during the daylight hours, and we read and write by night. That, during these dark days, is about as good as it gets.
7th March 2016
We continue to keep a low profile here in the secure depths of the hitherto disused military base. Regular checks are made on the situation outside and, therefore, our safety in here, but we are otherwise keeping it real within the confines of the building.
But the same cannot be said of someone out there in the open. For the first time in weeks, the school bells rang out again at exactly 4am. Though very distant, largely contained within the valley of the village, we could just here them up here – if only because such sounds are now so foreign and naturally pierce the white noise of zombie groaning and grinding that we have become so accustomed to.
Not since 14th February had we heard those bells resonating, so much so that they almost fell off our exhaustive radar of unanswered questions. But yet again they chimed and bellowed, for a solid 20 minutes – and then silence. Someone, whoever it is and whatever their motivation, is trying to catch the attention of others. But is that person seeking the attention of the living, or the distraction of the undead?
We ran, half-dressed and less than half-awake, up to the observatory and looked out upon the wide expanse of the base to see for the first time how the countless crowds of corpses would react. Most were distracted, clearly moved by the promise of sating their bloodlust. They ruthlessly ambled in the direction of sound, and left our now boring and much less-promising presence behind. Our main concern though, the portentous carcass that has so stalked our existence over the last week or more, was relatively unmoved. It moved at a much more glacial pace, still studious and seemingly reluctant to give up on its current plaything – us.
We did have to train our focus elsewhere, however. We had to satisfy our own demands; our search for some logic to these random, yet methodical acts of disturbance. We reverted back to the command centre to go back through all of those fragments of scattered paper,
those abstracts of the school and scribbled notes. But we still couldn’t make any sense of it, nor really theorise. Clearly someone had designs on Porthreth school, but for what intent or purpose we just don’t know. The notes depict the building’s entrances and every known nuance, but a key part of the diagrams appears to be missing – the strategy. Without that knowledge, we could drive ourselves crazy attempting to decode those doodles.
By the time we returned to the observatory for a status update, the so-called ‘stalker walker’ had moved out of sight, presumably on the coat tails of its decaying, perishing peers. We’ve reviewed the panorama around the site by binocular, but it seems to have gone for now.
With time on our hands and a less pressured environment to be trapped in, we’ve sought to re-examine many of the more intriguing rooms here – and have discovered the original blueprints for the base itself, every square foot of it. We now have a clearer idea of what we’re dealing with here, and have learned that we’re stood atop a labyrinth of mine shafts and tunnels deep below the surface. Many of which have a natural path out into the cliff face and, ultimately, the ocean behind us.
It’s got me wondering about some audacious ideas to expose one of the several surrounding mine caps and potentially lure large numbers of the undead into a shaft to containment. The capped mine entrances provide an opening to a more than 30 feet fall, which would be insurmountable to any cadaver and could leave scores of them to rot to non-existence down there.
But as Jenny rightly pointed out, not only would that be extremely elaborate, it also only deals with the corpses around the base; we would need to go on some kind of grave do-or-die effort into the village to lure the undead up to the base and the exposed mine shaft. There would be far simpler or more effective ways of mass ridding the village of walkers, even if we don’t know what they are yet.
The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3] Page 13