On that note, I’m going to call it a day. I can’t keep going over the same ground, not today. It’s not good for either of our mental states, and that isn’t good for baby. We need to switch off and get some rest while we can – and hopefully some clear thought.
19th March 2016
We're surrounded. Just like that. The whole base, to all three sides is completely swaddled in the undead. Snapping, snarling and actively rotting before our eyes in a six feet deep formation along the full length of the perimeter fence, they’re angry and excited.
When we finally retired to bed last night, our heads full of dreams and anxieties of impending parenthood, the site was still, quiet. The stormy weather aside, it has been for days. A few corpses circled around, a few dozen more roamed around amidst the tree line, and of course our very own stalker walker surveyed the scene in the distance, but nothing new.
At first glance this morning though, there they were – hundreds of them desperate for flesh. They are hungered, almost indignant with bloodlust. We have not been outside for almost a week, yet it’s as if they know we are here and are fraught with anticipation.
Who or what the hell attracted them? Are there any sinister motivations at play? Though we may be safely sheltered here for now, we’re shitting ourselves. It’s carnage out there. It’s the most exposed we’ve been to the outbreak for a few weeks, since we were right out there in the thick of it in the woods.
After a few hours of getting my mentality in place, I managed to get outside and rebuild some of the defences damaged by the storms, but what use they will be we don't know. I've got huge concerns about the fence itself, too. We watched as it continued to take a battering in the wind; day after day of swirling, rip-roaring gusts shaking it to its foundations. I had salvaged a number of discarded wooden pallets from around the back of one of the four flare gas towers, and used them to shore up different sections of the fencing, but I'm not convinced by the arrangement. There’s considerable added pressure being put on that whole structure right now as gory corpses push and pull on the coarse metal lattice. It's just not looking as robust as it once was. Perhaps it never was that sturdy. Tightly packed, there must be at least 500 blood-curdled cadavers craving the destruction of that fence and clambering to get in.
I could feel their beady gaze undressing me, stripping me of my fleshy body right the way down to the clean bone. It sent shivers down my spine. It chilled me to the core. And I just couldn’t help thinking about the little baby that we need to protect and keep ourselves safe for. We both know that Jenny cannot take any more risks now than she has to, or already has done. We have to get through this, we have to make it work; nothing else will do. I retreated inside, and promptly set about re-securing the building – every door, every window, every possible opening or weak point.
20th March 2016
Today, I have been mostly thinking about my own parents. Perhaps it is the knowledge of impending parenthood sinking in, perhaps it is just simply the idle hours of entrapment that the apocalypse of 2016 affords, but I have not been able to stop thinking about surviving 2016 with them.
We’ve certainly had time to dwell. The site is still surrounded, with cadavers building upon layers of cadavers. We dread to think how many are out there right now, or how much longer the security of the military defences will hold true. I can’t help thinking the perimeter fence will cave in sooner or later. Unless there is a reprieve in corpse activity, I can’t see it lasting the night. If that goes, we really will be sitting and praying. The hundreds of vicious, violent zombies out there will lay siege to the remaining natural defences that separate us from them. At this rate, it’s just a matter of time.
In the absence of any maverick grand plan – yet – to create a diversion or clearing of corpses, we’re sat like paranoid androids constantly checking the internal reinforcements and staring out across the site from the observatory. We’ve checked the doors, windows, structural walls, anything that might be a weakness against the onrushing undead – and we’ve checked them over and over. If anything, our constant checking might bring about an unforced error. We need to throttle back.
But that means you retreat into submission and allow the deep thinking to ensue, against the increasingly intimidating backdrop of groaning and grinding. Which has led me to get lost in thought about my parents.
The combat and arduous, terrifying travails aside, they would have been good at this. My Dad in particular would have excelled at getting us through the sheer volume of time spent cooped up indoors, under each other’s feet. He would have been brilliant at the foraging and bodging through situations; he would have made ingenious makeshift defences and barricades, inventive means of distracting corpses, and would have been invaluable at general handiness around the place, wherever it was. All of the things that I think I have done a decent job of myself, the practical things, he would have done better.
Mum, meanwhile, would have been a complete picture of anxious mess, worrisome and overawed with fear. Yet, she also would have been unrivalled at culinary ingenuity. Mum would have made the impossible possible; with incomplete or incorrect ingredients, she would have still made a heart-warming ration to get us through another day. The same could be said of cleaning and washing – and comforting. I could certainly do with her comforting words and actions right now, and she would have been the perfect grandparent for our little one to be.
They’ve occupied my thoughts for most of the day, and I can’t help thinking its all part of the impending parenthood, and the shock of it all over the last few days. It’s hit me more than I ever imagined. But everything’s a complex web of emotions right now, parenthood or not. I’m just glad, in a completely bittersweet way of thinking, that my parents passed before this apocalypse was even close to beginning – and I know they are not out there amongst the hundreds of thousands of thoughtless, instinct-driven monsters that prey on our flesh today.
21st March 2016
So, a status update:
The power is, incredibly, still on. The water is still running fresh and, presumably, healthy; I hope so, we've been drinking plenty of it. There is also still cabled Internet access, hence the blogging, and power to the control room – even if I haven’t worked out how to get anything to function.
Walker activity has plateaued, though it hasn't weakened. There are still easily more than 500 corpses clambering at the fence out there, and potentially as many as 750 I reckon.
The fence is, remarkably, still intact. We still don't know how. The undead have dropped an aggression level it seems – perhaps with no sight of us for several days now the anticipation of a feast has died down a little – but they are still exerting quite a force on it and we're amazed it's held true for so long. It's literally keeping the wolf from the door right and now without it, our survival might be a different story.
We've doubled back into the inner sanctum of the base. Granted, it does feel a little like burying ourselves deeper into a potential tomb, but it's the survival instincts kicking in again, the same survival instincts that served us so well in our humble apartment from the onset of this nightmare until relatively recently. We managed to ride out the worst of the pestilence, the brutal opening days and weeks of its impact – if we can do the same here we'll look back on this with some semblance of happiness. Besides, do we have much choice?
Whether we can withstand up to 750 or more pugnacious zombies, I don't know. I don't know if any of our defences will hold. They heavy steel doors should be more than a match for any pressure that undead might exert, but we've fortified them to the inside all the same. Heavy furnishings like bedsteads and wardrobes sit in front of the doors, providing the perfect obstacle to intrusion.
We've mapped every square inch of the building and, from memory, the surrounding base. There's just two aspects of this building that we're completely unsure of - what and where lies beyond two separate doors that fan out from the living quarters. Both are practically welded shut; we can find no
keys for either and they're so inherently heavy and secure that there's just no way past them. The schematics that we have for the building illustrate some lengthy corridors with rooms attached, but do nothing more – no description of those rooms or what they might have in store, just listless lines on a set of blueprints.
Other than that, the core of the building here is relatively secure and in good shape.
To the rear of the building, really backing only onto the cliff top and a neighbouring farmer's cornfield, I've simply littered it with sprinklings of smashed glass. It's a bit of a clichéd trick from silver screen spy thrillers, but footfall unknowingly crunching on that glass will give us the heads up about any threat to the lesser known rear face - whether undead or otherwise. We have guns loaded and ready to be used on our side of that door, even if we've never before fired a weapon in anger. I still hope that we don’t have to chalk up that kind of achievement.
22nd March 2016
The entrapment is getting to Jenny all over again. I’m putting it down to the cacophony of emotions swirling deep within her at the moment, stirred up by the suspected pregnancy.
A crack in the blinds in the library allowed a hundred splinters of sunlight to impress on the door beside us this morning, the gentle dawn light instigating a pause in our distracted reading and training both our attentions on the window behind us. It was a reminder of the hordes of snarling corpses that lie in wait outside, snapping on the air and salivating in anticipation of their next meal.
We have perhaps not enjoyed such warmth and security as the base affords since the early days of the apocalypse, we had not slept a whole night through for even longer, and had not felt so safe for weeks. But the vista outside shakes Jenny to her core every time she sets eyes on it. As she pulled the heavy faux fur throw tighter around her huddled body and snuggled into its softness, she knew this was as got as it got right now. But she also felt that it couldn't last, she says.
As I skulked around the room wondering how long we could justify staying here sheltered and assured, I began to question whether we really would ever need to leave at all. The spring frost had returned overnight, but we can’t feel any trace of it in here right now. Biters stalk the woodlands outside and hound the fence all around us, we know, yet in fleeting moments we can feel so removed from it all in here that it’s possible – just for split-seconds – to forget. We have fences that are holding, we have land to one day utilise, we have power and water, and we even have some light firearms. The installation gives us a welcome respite from the immediate dangers out there; could it also give us a home?
Jenny is not convinced our futures do lie up at the base. Every time we scan the site from the observatory or catch a momentary glance through the blinds as we did this morning, another layer of doubt compounds her worst fears. "They said this wouldn't happen, they said rural places would be safe for months," she cried.
"People. Studies. Reports. All these experts and think tanks, all of their research into disease control and zombie outbreaks said that the cities would go first – but the rural places would be safe. Well they were wrong, weren’t they? We're not safe. It took days for this shit to reach us, not weeks, not months, just days. So what hope is there? We don't have a hope."
What could I say to that? I literally have nothing but blind faith and somewhat empty assurances. I just have to make sure that I convey genuine belief in them and see it through, if only for Jenny and the baby. We couldn't have predicted this, no-one could, not really. With increasing bacterial resistance, globalisation, and a whole load of other products of mankind’s development, the indelible truth was that an apocalypse of some kind was only ever around the corner – yet we still couldn’t have foreseen this. But we can survive it, one day and one dream at a time. We can make it work, and we are making it work. We've got to believe, all three of us.
23rd March 2016
This is no longer survival, this is about sustainability, long-term. That's our mantra anyway, even if I know deep down that surviving 2016 is as good as it gets. It’s a continuing train of thought, or conundrum, over the last few days and weeks. It’s also a belief that I’m using to get Jenny through.
I’ve been working all night to get plans together for a fresh start up here. Jenny has been getting some much-needed sleep; I have been sketching out plans for a crop patch among the grassy knolls. She tosses and turns; I read books and research agriculture. She stirs and dreams of better days; I power nap and resume planning for those better days. While she sleeps, I scheme.
It’s been a long night. We’re still safe inside the building’s inner sanctum, but it’s been a while since we took sleep shifts and I’d forgotten how unnerving the unrelenting moaning and groaning of a thousand cadavers can be. It’s cruel and oppressive in equal measure.
We have to find a way of clearing the hundreds upon hundreds of corpses outside, and I have to step up and spare Jenny any more anguish and torment. The least risky means of doing that has to be to use the flare gun we found in one of the vehicles several weeks ago now. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I knew the rape alarm and handful of percussion caps we had left from a toy cap gun would not be enough to deter such a strong number of assailants. It simply wouldn’t have touched the sides. But when it came to me this morning to finally use the flare gun, after a whole night of brain-wracking, I was kicking myself that I hadn’t figured it out before now.
It has to be the best solution, for now. I plan to fire it off to the east of the base as the undead look at it, further up the coast toward the hamlets of Porthtewyn and Porthperan. It still involves running the gauntlet of the perimeter fence, to a degree, but the inevitable distraction of the bright red flare should be more than enough to fire the fleshy lust of the aggressive corpses long enough for me to bolt out of sight. Hopefully once scores of them begin to follow their hungered contemplation of the flare, the rest will follow. I just hope we’re not luring them to another unlucky bunch of survivors somewhere in the distance.
I’m going to wait until late this afternoon, perhaps nearer early evening. We’ll need the right light for the flare to have maximum impact and keep the gaze of the cadavers long enough to put enough distance between us, and simultaneously mask my presence a little. I’m thinking 6pm could be the optimum time.
It will take several hours, perhaps all night, in fact. But once our surroundings are carcass-free, we can set about building all over again. I plan to pull a few intensive 20-hour days shoring up our defences, checking the fencing for weak spots or damage, and getting to grips with my long-hoped for trench plans. I’ll get Jenny to keep surveillance from inside the fence while I work furiously on the other side digging out a 5-feet deep trench and planting branch bayonets at intervals throughout, impaling cadavers as they fall into it. All of the dug-out earth will be mounded up against the bottom of the fence for added reinforcement, with any excess soil used to create my raised beds for crops.
It certainly won’t be easy, and I’m absolutely shitting it at the thought of being on the opposite side of the fence to Jenny for long spells, but we have to get this done properly this time around. Sitting deep within the building clinging on to any shreds of security while hundreds of corpses are baying for blood just 30 feet or more away, as we have done for the last few days, is no way to live. We need to be more street-wise. We need to break the shackles of imprisonment and take back the middle ground, even just a little. I also plan to de-cap one or two of the nearest mine shifts if I can, creating a ready-made pit for meandering cadavers to simply stumble into and decompose some 300 feet down into the ground.
Once secure, we can turn our attentions to our efforts to make the base work for us; making some use of those grassy knolls, building up more internal defences, constructing water butts and filtrations systems just in case the water stops flowing, and creating the raised beds for crop growth. The latter will mean I have to venture into the wilderness again, briefly, to penetrate the nearby farm
er’s meadows and pillage maize kernels from the cornfield, cabbages from the patches, and any other discernible produce. If I have the time and momentum of courage, I may be able to search for something more than that. But I don’t intend to stray too far, nor leave Jenny holed up at the base’s observatory on her own for too long.
This is all in the name of sustainability, and we will make it work – not just for us, but our family. It’s going to be a crazy journey; first stop, my date with a flare gun. Wish me luck, reader.
24th March 2016
Sweaty palms, clammy chest, and with my own life literally in my hands, I ran the gauntlet of the airstrip to the far corner of the military base and dived down behind a large fuel storage tank. From there, I pressed hard on the trigger and fired the flare gun far up into the skies over Porthtewyn – and cowered in blind hope. My disguised position provided limited view of both the flare’s impact, and any oncoming threat that I might need to be aware of.
Unsighted and with my back to all of the action, I had only the soundtrack of slogging, murmuring corpses to judge my actions by. Even as I ran for cover behind various objects and outbuildings and staked my very indirect way back to the base, I had little opportunity to assess the scene around me; my desired concealment wouldn’t allow it. Twenty minutes later and I still had no idea if our plan had been successful.
But it worked! We are safe again, and secluded. As I write this there are but a handful of remaining cadavers encircling the base, comfortably kept from our space by the able and seemingly ever-reliable perimeter fence. Among them, lingers the ‘stalker walker’ that apparently refuses to leave our sides, like a loyal retriever unwilling to give up on its master. Hundreds of walkers – literally hundreds of them – followed the bold, shimmering red flare over the cliffs and into the distance. Quite how long they may have persisted in following that orb we do not know. They may only have trudged as far as Porthtewyn’s volleyed outskirts; but they are far from here. We live for a few more days in relative relief and tranquillity.
The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3] Page 16