Cape Zero- the Fall

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  The first room was up the stairs, and he took his preliminary steps as quietly as he could, being faced with only the occasional creak as his shoes impacted on the old wood. When he finally reached the top, Peter drew the keys from his pocket, but then a thought occurred to him.

  I don’t want to open a door just to be bitten.

  So he did as any normally sociable person would, and knocked. First, nothing answered. So he knocked again – still nothing. He brought his ear to the door and listened. For a full minute, nothing made a sound, and after becoming assured that it was safe, he unlocked the door and opened it.

  As he had surmised, the small room was empty, and the rest of the apartment seemed the same. He closed the door behind him, not wanting to be caught unaware and then began his scavenging. He didn’t plan to stay in the first room he found, but he knew he would have to take anything he could find to survive. The room looked like it had been hastily left. A chair was tossed over and the fridge was wide open, revealing nothing but a wedge of cheese. Peter didn’t particularly like cheese but he knew he would need it all the same. He opened up the drawer opposite the fridge and found nothing but a bread knife. It was short and anything but combat-ready, but it would be more useful than the ledger. Underneath the drawer was a section devoted to packets. He took one and then placed the cheese within it. Satisfied that he had raided the kitchen of anything he could use, he moved on to the bedroom. As he had expected, the bed was a mess, blankets tossed everywhere. Not much was left, and after some fruitless searching, Peter left.

  After he had raided the sparse apartment of anything he could find, he moved onto the next. This time he managed to find a leather jacket to go over his thin T-shirt, as well as a packet of Simba chips. He also found another, equally blunt, bread knife but decided that two would always be better than one and decided to pocket it.

  The first room on the second floor was much richer than the first two, as he found an entire cooler bag of food and an abandoned tobacco set, lighter included. He took the lighter as he knew he would need it sometime, and even pocketed the tobacco, as you never knew what someone might trade to get their fix.

  It was the last apartment which Peter decided to inhabit. In it, he found nothing but cat food, that he hoped he would not need to eat any time soon. Here he took off his burdens and began to settle into his new temporary home.

  2. Predicament

  Peter’s stomach growled like a wild dog. He could very well claim to be as hungry as one. Rubbing his belly idly, he glanced down from the mountain as the sun’s glare became too much to handle. Deciding that he had had enough fresh air, he re-entered the apartment.

  It was a small abode, consisting of about three rooms, if you could call the bathroom a room. The only furniture within had since been used to block the door, or utilise as a place to display his meagre supplies. On the coffee table, which was acting as his temporary storing area, he had what was left of his seclusion in the abandoned apartment: a leather jacket, two bread knives, an empty cooler bag and one sachet of cat food.

  Peter grimaced and after staring longingly at the cat food, he pounced. The feeble plastic packet was no match for his superior ripping abilities and he opened it with one clean rip, devouring the remainder of what was supposed to be his lifetime rations.

  After downing the raw meat, he realized how stupid it was of him to actually believe that he could stay in this building forever. He had no means to contact anyone. He never carried a cell phone and the power was cut hours after he arrived. Even so, he had survived and even thrived. The food had lasted for two weeks and he had managed to go to bed warm every night. He doubted that much of Cape Town could say the same.

  Even after the screams and gunfire had stopped, Peter had still not encountered another person. No one came knocking on the door and no one had attempted to break open the trellis door on the ground floor. His constant vigilance also made sure that he knew what passed down the street, and unless he had missed something, the street had remained deserted.

  His stomach still rumbled, the cat food not coming near to sating his hunger.

  ‘Damn my desire for sustenance,’ Peter found himself muttering to no one in particular. He had found himself doing that quite a lot – even before the outbreak. It was one of the many things which made people believe that he was an eccentric, something which he fervently denied, of course. He talked to himself because no one else deserved his conversation; it was as simple as that.

  He stood up from his kneeling position and let out a sigh. He was still feeling hunger pains which, no matter how much he cursed, didn’t seem inclined to leave. That really did irritate him. When he told something to leave, he expected it to leave.

  As his irritable stomach continued to growl, he started softening up. It wasn’t really its fault after all. So he patted it down and proceeded to massage it till the pain was a bearable. After the sharp stabbing pain was merely a side thought, he assessed his situation.

  ‘No food, no electricity and no fuel. Damn good predicament I’ve gotten myself into.’

  He shook his head, not really meaning the last part. Nothing really was his fault. Regardless, he needed to concoct a plan.

  He didn’t know what he was thinking, believing that he could stay there forever. Did he even want to? It was incredibly drab. After a few weeks, he surmised that he would probably want to get eaten by zombies just to alleviate his boredom.

  No matter how much he dreaded the prospect, Peter knew he would need to leave the confines of this apartment. It wasn’t even a question of eventually. If he planned to get a meal and appease his stomach, he would have to do it today.

  There were problems. He lacked a means to defend himself, besides the two bread knives. The leather jacket protected his arms from the lazy biter, but he severely doubted it would defend him from any determined Infected. There had to be something more in the apartment which he could use.

  In his renewed search, he found a smallish, but no less useful, backpack, as well as two belts, both of which he decided to bring along. You couldn’t have too many belts, after all. Besides these prizes, he didn’t come upon anything which could be utilised as a weapon superior to his current twin bread knives.

  After about half an hour of searching, he let out a disappointed sigh. It was then that he noted that the pangs in his belly were back. Weapon or not, he would have to venture outside of the apartment and start facing what the world had become. Hell, it couldn’t be much worse than before.

  3. Streets

  Peter winced as the trellis door slid behind him with a loud clunk. The noise was not deafening but any noise at all in this situation was undesirable. He turned around irritably, facing the deserted street. He wore simple clothing, but much more stylish than he normally would have worn. Covering his torso was a black leather jacket, crossed by the two belts which he was currently using to hold his twin bread knives. For pants, he wore simple jeans, hoping that its history as miner apparel would mean it could withstand teeth as well as stone shrapnel. His shoes were weaker than he would have wished – the out-of-fashion but convenient Crocs. He regretted wearing them as, even though they were comfortable, they did little in the way of improving his already below par running skills. They would have to do, as he had no alternative besides flip flops, which were even more atrocious.

  Taking a deep breath, he took his first step out of the apartment, then another, and another. With each slow reluctant step, he began picking up pace, until eventually he was plodding along at a reasonable speed. No life graced the desolate street, and none had been there in a while. Doors remained closed, windows shut and curtains drawn. Like the apartment, the residents seemed to have just upped and left, of course taking their valuables and food with them, without any thought that he may come along and need a roast or two. Peter grimaced: people really were greedy pigs, weren’t they?

  He thought of checking out the houses, but decided against it. Most of the houses were, in all like
lihood, locked and the food ransacked by the greedy, selfish owners.

  There was only one place nearby where he knew he would get food without having to break a window, and that was Cavendish Square. It was a mall after all and malls had food, too much food for even looters to steal. He also severely doubted that, with all the zombies trotting about, that any looters may have reached Cavendish at all. That thought stopped Peter in his tracks. Bringing his hand to his head and shaking it, he spoke to himself, ‘How could I have been so bloody stupid? Zombies will keep me away just as much as locked doors.’

  Then he replied to himself, ‘But, is there any real guarantee that the zombies are even there? You are insane, you know. Maybe they were figments of your imagination?’

  ‘I’m not insane,’ he countered, highly offended that he would say something like that, ‘I just like talking to myself.’

  ‘That very action proves your insanity and if you are insane, can you truly prove that there really were zombies there in the first place?’

  Peter kept quiet, thinking of a reply. He had a point. The credence of anything an insane person did was doubtful. Maybe there truly were no zombies.

  ‘Very well, I will take you up on your claim that the zombies may be myth. So, do I head towards Cavendish?’ he asked, finally.

  ‘If you wish to rid yourself of these stomach aches - yes.’

  With that, Peter gave a confident nod and set off, ready to leave the street.

  Things had been left in stasis. Lines of cars were left abandoned; bags of trinkets were tossed around. Letter boxes and windows were smashed, leaving glass scattered across the floor. Bullet shells lay strewn across the ground, a concentration of them located near a police van. Frequently, Peter found himself doubting himself. Maybe there really were zombies? Hell, the bodies of all the owners had to have gone somewhere. Whenever one of these thoughts came up, however, he would hastily remind himself, ‘Now remember, Peter, you are insane. You can’t trust anything you tell yourself.’

  This reassured him for a while and he would continue onwards. Every so often, he would glance down to see what the now non-existent people had dropped: toothpaste, phones, hats, newspapers. The list went on and on, but the usefulness of said objects continued to decline.

  What Peter really wanted was a good sharp knife. Only then would he feel safer. It was then that a near blinding glint of silver pierced his vision and forced him to blink. The sun had risen further and had illuminated much of the city, including what seemed to Peter to be a concentrated mini-spotlight. But after blinking, Peter’s irritation turned to one of joy as, lying in a pile of rubble, he spotted the source of the nauseating light: it was a knife. He couldn’t maintain his composure as he ran towards it, almost scraping his knees as he fell to examine the weapon.

  Before he lifted it out though, he realised that the hilt was covered in dried blood. Infected or human, he did not know (he convinced himself it was the latter after a persuasive argument was put forward). He still had no desire to touch dried blood, so he hastily ran back to areas he had once ignored. While many of the cars were smashed to bits, one shinier make was relatively unscathed. Peter carefully opened the already ajar door and then leant in.

  Peter was definitely not a car person, but even he had to admire the fine craftsmanship of such a vehicle. The seat belts were fine-tuned to perfection, after all - couldn’t have anything but perfection for belts. On the passenger side of the car, Peter found his quarry in the glove compartment. The gloves were unworn and crafted of leather. They would not only allow him to touch unhygienic objects without fear of dirtying himself, they would also allow him to look stylish.

  Pleased with his find, he went back to the blade. No sneak thief had taken it in the meanwhile and Peter noted that crime was actually lower than before the outbreak.

  Without fear of the blood, Peter took the blade by the hilt and lifted it up, examining it. It was a worthy knife, probably used for cooking but equally good for slicing people or zombies. The hilt was roundabout 10cm, the blade 25cm. Peter could also see by the metal lining of the hilt that the blade was full tang. He tested the point and found it satisfactory. It would do, even if it lacked a blood groove.

  He had always found blades fascinating. He had studied them when he could and owned a collection of swords and daggers back in his apartment in Rondebosch. He tried not to think about his collection, as it had probably all been looted, but he couldn’t resist building a new one out of anything he could find. Starting anew felt somewhat refreshing for Peter; he may very well have lost everything he owned, but he didn’t care about that. All that mattered to him was that he wasn’t disturbed when he wanted to be left alone.

  He inserted the blade into the belt around his waist, saving it for when he found a real threat. As he kept reminding himself, however, there probably were no threats – probably.

  He edged closer to his goal. As he came nearer, signs of violence became more apparent. Cars crashed into nearby buildings, dried blood staining the walls and asphalt of the streets, and abandoned weapons. He studied these weapons to see if he could find any as useful as his knife, but was disappointed to find that these were but the remainder of what must have been a carcass of weapons picked bare by scavengers. Guns, blades and passable blunt weapons had all been taken.

  From the other loot, he couldn’t find anything that he wanted. This area had, no doubt, been pilfered by scavengers. While picking through a pile of empty cans, Peter let out a heavy sigh. He could almost smell the curry which had been contained within, until it was so greedily devoured without him.

  He was only a street away from Cavendish Square, but the closer he drew to it, the more foreboding he felt. Regardless of what he told himself, he still believed that something was wrong – besides the obvious lack of people in one of the busiest shopping districts in the Southern Suburbs.

  He dropped the empty can, finally coming to the conclusion that it wouldn’t magically fill up again, and as it hit the ground, he saw something. He looked again, placing his hand on the hilt of the blade. He had seen a figure, a shadow, shambling in the alleys. It had reacted to the sound of the can. He held his breath. Not only to aid in concentration or preventing him from breathing too fast but also, due to the fact that he may end up talking to himself, and this wasn’t the time nor place to do that. He watched – not drawing the blade just yet, but easing it up so it could be easily drawn.

  Everything was as quiet as it had always been that morning. Sound would, in all likelihood, travel far. Glancing up slightly, Peter realised that clouds were moving in; his brief period of sunny respite was over. He stood for seconds more, and then stopped.

  ‘Must have been your imagination, you are insane after all.’

  Peter growled slightly. He still had a point. There probably was nothing there. Peter turned and after one suspicious glance down the alley, kept on moving, not letting go of his grip on the knife no matter his own protests.

  4. Brunch

  The buildings could have been deceased themselves for all Peter knew. No sound, no light and no life. One of the most bustling centres of the city was practically dead. He usually liked being alone, but this sense of lifelessness was heavy, unnerving, claustrophobic even. Peter didn’t like it one little bit.

  He steeled himself and took a step into the empty area between the two halves of the Cavendish mall - the place where he had met the zombie beggar yesterday, or as he told himself, where he met no one yesterday and just decided to run and squat in someone’s house for the hell of it.

  As he had surmised, the place was trashed. Windows had been broken, furniture strewn across the floor and shops, no doubt, looted. Peter once again started doubting why he had come there. The houses on the way were more likely to have some worthy supplies and, zombies or not, this area was most probably stripped to the bone.

  He felt another stomach pain, this one almost forcing him to double over. After recovering, he knew that looted or not, he had
to find food. So he entered what was left of Cavendish mall, making sure to step over the glass and through the smashed glass doors.

  As he had guessed, the generator had long since run out of power or wasn’t even switched on in the first place, as the mall was pitch-black. The prospect of delving through that with merely a small lighter, already running out of fuel, was not his idea of fun.

  So he went against his inhibitions and turned to his right, where he could see the barely lit, but no less grotesque, McDonalds.

  He gulped, but knew that any food was better than none. Once in the fast food venue, he noticed that out of all the side restaurants, this one had been hit the least. He severely doubted that that was due to the quality of food, however, and was more inclined to believe that there really was nothing worth stealing. McDonalds didn’t utilise cutlery and the only things worth stealing would be the fryer, which no lone looter would be able to run off with.

  Once he had entered the kitchen behind the counter which, for some inexplicable reason, had been stripped of cash registers, his theory was proven correct. The fryer was indeed still there.

  Now it was time to find some food. Delving deep into the confines of the dark sinister kitchen, he searched high and low, eventually discovering only a small bag of potatoes and a patty which had thankfully not grown mold yet. Luckily, that was only one section of the kitchen and there was still plenty of space to look, including the order counter. It may not be fresh, but if he could find a quick meal there he would be thankful. If it was up to him, he would save the potatoes for later; they would last much longer than the patty and any other snacks.

  He placed the potatoes into his backpack, which he had swung under his arm so he could easily place things in it with ease. Currently, the small bag only contained the potatoes, a lighter and a particularly nice looking piece of asphalt he had found earlier. It was by no means a fortune. Eventually, he thought, I will change that.