The man in red

I had not realised I had lost track of time until I met a man with a watch. He was dead, his digital watch was not. Assuming it is correct, it is January 6. I guess I'm not the writer you are my friend as it's been long since our last meeting. I can only try. What has happened has not been worth noting until today. I met the man in red.

The optimist in me wonders if this was your doing? Dressing an Infected up as Santa Claus and chaining him to a lamppost. It certainly got my attention. Without him, I might not have noticed the sign painted there, 'Gone West'.

Why west? If you are the man I think you are you've been going north. Why suddenly turn to the West? Did you meet someone with news coming from the north? I looked around, you left nothing else, just that sign and Santa Claus. I even took his hat off in case you left a message. Don't worry, I put your sign back as I found it. Maybe it's not you and maybe the sign is not even for me.

West. Don't be going to Skye. Although there's no surprises there now, just disappointment. Be a village, a small hamlet or farmhouse.

I've been holed up for weeks since I found a food cache, so you might be far ahead of me. Then again, the cold weather will be hitting you as hard as it is me. Burning everything I can find until there's nothing left then moving on. Getting caught by the elements would be a clean way to die at least. Going west means crossing the country. With no guarantee of fuel, how are you doing it? Did you find enough to fill a van with spare enough to make it all the way across to the coast?

Why now in this climate? The infected still move through the snow and rain and storms. The coldest winds heap slush and snow on them and turn them to ice. Then they just break their icy bonds and move around with tendrils of cold hanging from their heads. You can hear them now, the ice in their hair like musical chimes. Nothing seems to stop them. So why now?

West is wrong. I pray this is not you. North my friend. Until reason turns me aside, we keep north.

The Dead Don't Write

They didn't make it. We found you in their car. I know it's you because I have read you from first to last. An all to early last entry. But at least I can do to you what I cannot for them. I can bring you back to life.

We found the contents of the backpack during a search for fuel and provisions. You previous owner was right about one thing; the Isle of Skye. It was one of the safe zones the Government used as a base to regroup and fight the Infection. I can't confirm the other locations. Your infected... zombies they call them. Infection spread everywhere. Quarantine and decontamination procedures at Skye helped slow things down, but too many people already had it. That's where we came from. All the people there, all the chaos... All the blood and bodies and death and butchery. It's obvious some of us have natural immunity. Nobody could have avoided it there. Maybe more people would avoid Infection if they weren't killed by the Infected. Or by the army. That was the final straw for the population; finding out that the disease control centers were just execution and dumping grounds. Mass graves everywhere, but even they weren't deep enough and in the end we just had mountains of corpses to burn. All the soldiers involved became Infected of course. A small kind of justice I suppose.

And then came the Shutdown. Tipping point where there weren't enough healthy people left to keep things running. All the utilities went. Once electricity went, everything else began to fall. We were ordered to Skye to keep the peace. We knew what that meant.

No TV, no radio, no news. People quickly get lost. They rely on all these things so absolutely. You have no idea how vital they are to the daily toil of normal life until they are gone. Once people realised being refugees was going to get them nowhere, they became savages. Anybody that managed to escape the Infected grouped up or went feral. The rest died or became Infected.

These are the gaps I am filling in. This is what happened around the rest of the nation.

Manchester was a test. It failed. Infected had already spread too far. Infection was even appearing outside of the UK. Being with the army we heard more of what happened after the media services went off the air. The USA, China, France. Didn't hear about anywhere else, but we knew it was everywhere. Still nobody seemed to know where it came from. Manchester was where it all started. After the bomb was dropped we did our duty and rounded up as many infected as we could. Shot them all. Did the same with anybody who was sick. Then with anybody we caught breaking curfew. Finally with anybody we caught outside at all. No chances were taken.

Do I feel guilty? Of course I do. Guilty for killing all those people. Guilty for surviving. Guilty for being too much of a coward to take the only sensible route out of this mess. And guilty for not doing a damned thing when they screamed and pleaded for the lives of their children. Guilty as charged.

I feel guilty alright. But do you want to know a hard truth? If just one of them was Infected, they all were. That's Infection. That's how bad it is. It's not fast, but it's nearly total. Two people left Skye. Two out of thousands. I've seen some more on my way here. I've read about you three. Even you might have not avoided Infection. Perhaps that's what caught up with you. What did you really have that laid you low while everybody around you died? Did the boy pick it up from the Infected family he captured? The soldier? Maybe you just ran out of luck.

You are dead now. I envy you. But I cannot join you. I must search for more survivors. I must find others, like me, and help them. I must atone for my sins.

And that's why I will carry you, and continue you. And I hope one day that I can give you back if you are still alive. And ask for your forgiveness too.

The road north

Dev has been sleeping in the back of the car for over sixteen hours. Before that Craig bent his ears back for the entire time since he joined us. I think I understand Craig’s excitement. At the same time I admit to feeling a little jealous. With me, Craig has been withdrawn and morose. Maybe the soldier represents ‘real’ authority. Maybe it’s simply that we found another survivor.  I just hope Dev feels as talkative tomorrow; I need to pick his brains again.

Following what Dev has already told us, my original plan of Skye still feels sound. The mention of jerry cans piqued my interest. Not to go back for his, but to look for suitable containers for us to use. Driving across Scotland is going to take a lot of petrol. If we find a good source of fuel, especially more than we can put into the tank, then we need to start filling extra containers for lean times or extended journeys.

An extra mouth means more food too. Not that any of us need to eat so much being in the car most of the time. Still, unless we get really lucky, it means more stops for scavenging. Perhaps between them Dev and Craig know enough about feeding off the land. Do they still learn that kind of thing in the army? I know Craig knows his mushrooms. All of us can spot fruit on a tree. Hunting… snares are pretty basic. Stupid to think they might only catch rabbits and hares though. Likely that anything will get caught in a snare; dog, cat, fox, rat, badger. Not sure how I feel about trying to eat a badger. I imagine starvation will decide that for us.

So a slow crawl up towards Darlington and hope we get lucky enough on the way. If not, then into Darlington itself we go. I shudder to think of the numbers of Infected there.

The Soldier's Tale

We found another piece of the jigsaw today. Almost ran over him in fact. He’s a soldier. Calls himself Dev, short for Devesh. He must have been watching us as our car crawled past on our inspection of other cars with unmolested fuel caps.  Comes out waving his arms and I just panicked. He jumped clear just in time. Yelled at us as we shot past. Lucky. It was the voice that made me slow down.

You might think that another survivor would be a welcome sight but I sat there shaking, fingers digging into the steering wheel, staring at him in the mirror. Craig was yelling at me and jumping around in his seat. I barely heard him. All I could do was watch this dishevelled man hobble towards us. I began to think that I had imagined his voice, that maybe he was Infected. Then he waved and smiled. I burst out laughing.

The rest of this entry is Dev’s story. If I talk in his words, it’s because some things are better told from his perspective. Also I’m tired. It’s late, but this has to be written down.

Devesh is a corporal from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 2^nd battalion. When the government decided to act he was sent to the outskirts of Manchester to set up one of the many roadblocks. I only saw the one myself, but he assures me they covered every single way out of the Greater Manchester area. Part of their duty included marshalling anybody trying to flee towards collection points for delivery to makeshift refugee camps. By the end of his second day orders had changed. Anybody displaying signs of illness were to be taken aside for delivery to a test centre for Infection. Those that looked clear would be taken to quarantine centres. At least that was what people were told if they asked.

The reports of the rioting were grim. Then more orders;  turn people back. Warnings shots to be followed by live fire. That must have been when the curfew was introduced. Until then it was still considered civil disobedience. I assume the government had people studying Infection because rumours about it started to circulate. Paper face masks were handed out. The following day and night were quiet. Then the Infected came.

Emerging from their sickness, the Infected look little like normal people. Unkempt, dirty, delirious, angry and murderous. In the early stages anything can agitate them. Once it starts it needs an outlet. They explode with aggression towards whatever caught their attention.  

A group appeared a hundred or so yards away from his roadblock. Four when they first noticed them. More followed. And that’s something we have both noticed about them, that they appear to be able to recognise other Infected and even travel in groups. Dev’s unit yelled at them over a loudspeaker. That got some of the Infected running at them, which made the rest surge. A warning shot was fired. Nothing.

Dev said that it is hard to ‘just’ shoot another human being, especially when they are unarmed. The Infected might look like berserkers but they are not a natural enemy. Not back then anyway. A second warning shot. Then orders to shoot just the first few, see if it would stop the rest. The first volley didn’t even stop the ones that were shot. Weapons were turned to full automatic and magazines were emptied. Two still managed to reach them and had to be dealt with up close and personal.

Why are they so hard to stop? A headshot works well. Enough damage to the torso will drop them too.  Spinal damage will cripple them, and you can ruin their legs to simply stop them going anywhere.

Communicating the encounter to his superiors, it was apparent that this was happening everywhere. Having seen the pillar of smoke from the centre of Manchester I can only assume the Infected were being driven on by the flames. A first encounter is enough to shock anybody. Dev said that the second encounter was easier. The rest of the time anybody was shot as soon as they appeared.

That’s the first time he paused. He just looked down at his lap for a moment, sighed, and then explained. ‘Couldn’t spare the ammo. No more warnings. Just head shots.’

The next two days were more of the same. A steady stream of Infected. Sometimes a larger group, but mostly singles. During that time they had little communication with anybody. Then new orders: leave immediately, travel directly to Bradford to regroup and wait. Then Manchester was destroyed. That shook everybody.  Once they were in Bradford, there were more soldiers to talk amongst. News spread fast. Infection was the cause. There was no cure.  And you caught it as easily as a common cold.

Paranoia spread fast. Anybody with a cold or flu or that got sick was taken away for testing. Face masks were worn all the time. Rumours about new pockets of violence around the nation were rife.  Nobody was allowed in or out of the country.

New orders. Protect the infrastructure. While that was true, what that really meant was that people who worked there had to stay there and keep the country running. Even at the point of a gun. Dev’s unit was redeployed to Cottam Power Station.

Physically it was an easy posting. Psychologically it was the worst of all. News was on a need to know basis, but still rumour managed to spread. Not knowing anything for certain made the rumours worse than the truth. Europe and the USA about to nuke the UK.  The entire nation falling to Infection. The battle of London lost. A nation overrun.

The power demands of the station indicated that there were still people out there. So many substations had been lost though, so power was no longer reaching the majority. But none of that mattered, because people continued to get sick.

News arrived. London really had fallen. More Infected in London than anywhere. Bullets too limited, so new measures used. Flamethrowers and petrol- tankers just opened to flood the streets. Talk of tens of thousands of Infected burning and taking central London with them.

Dev was quiet for a long time after he spoke of London. I assume he had family or connections there.  I haven’t asked yet. If he has any London story it will come out in his own time.

Back to the power station. Radio contact with control was lost. The sickness spread to the soldiers.  That they had avoided it so long was a miracle. And somewhere they passed a point where they decided enough was enough. The staff had brought the station to a virtual halt. With no contact with the outside world, with no need to be in the station, people cracked. Dev decided to let everybody leave. The staff fled.  The soldiers that wanted to go home could go. Three decided to go with Dev.

He took them north. They had also heard the rumours of emergency settlements. Four of them; Skye, Isle of Wight, Orkney and one more that he couldn’t remember the name of. Pretty much agreed with my own ideas. Still, just rumours.

Lack of fuel stopped them and they took a few jerry cans and set off to find more. Ended up in Thirsk. Low on ammunition and perhaps overconfident from never having faced them that close and in numbers, they were attacked as they were siphoning fuel. Shooting one quickly brought many more. Dev and one other managed to get into a house and out the back and lose the Infected following them. The other two soldiers must have fallen; Dev simply never mentioned them again.

With so many Infected roused, they decided to stay put. There was a little food in the house. The next day Dev’s comrade fell ill. After two days of getting worse, the soldier found enough household chemicals to make a cocktail he wouldn’t recover from.  Dev waited two days to see if he could sneak back and get the jerry can. You can only run so fast with it though. He ditched it, left the road and went across country. He’d been dodging them ever since, working his way slowly back to the road and then north.

His limp? Apparently I did clip him with the car.

Empty

Hundreds of Infected everywhere when we woke this morning. A few walked right by our car. The dim light and relentless rain left us all but invisible. Where the hell did they come from?

Starting the car earned us a few glances but the Infected seemed slower to notice us in the rain. By the time any had taken more than a couple of steps towards us we were driving around them and on our way.

There's little point dwelling on where they came from. It's a lesson learned to simply see them appear like that overnight. Their numbers would have overwhelmed us had they noticed us. We were saved by the weather.

The search for fuel took a nasty turn today. After leaving enough space between us and the crowd of Infected, I slowed the car down so that we could inspect other vehicles as we drove past. Almost all had their fuel caps opened or removed. It was pure hubris to think that we were the only desperate survivors to pass this way.

At first I was elated, thinking that there might be other survivors, but hope quickly faded. I realised this could have happened at any time over the past few weeks. This is why I am so desperate for news.

Keeping the car slow enough to check out every vehicle we pass is going to expend fuel a lot faster than we can afford. We are parked right now. I have to pick a town or village to explore. Main plans haven't changed, but the cars I thought we could siphon clean on the road have already been emptied. Just hope the village/town situation isn't the same. Cars there, especially in garages and carports, are our best hope. That means we have to dick around with hoses and fuel caps while worrying about the Infected again. Great.

Craig just stares out of the window. He's eating still, which I assume is a good sign, but other than that he does almost nothing. Then again, there's nothing to do except stare out of the window.

Stupid

Craig had the brilliant idea of hanging some pots and pans off the far end of the roof. Tied to a long length of wool and we just tugged it once in a while to make a loud clattering noise. It attracted attention from all the nearby Infected and left a nice clear path to the car. Alas, as slow as the Infected have become over the last weeks, they are still perceptive. One noticed me on my second trip to the car and when one comes, the rest follow. Craig spent fifteen minutes getting them back to the other end with his clanking pots.

 

It is a mistake to presume that the Infected are witless, that they are deaf dumb and blind unless you wave your arms in their face. The moment you think that, you are done for. The second time we attempted to move a lot of supplies into the car they noticed us straight away. We had time to clamber back inside. This time they only a few were drawn away by the noise pots and pans. The rest remained around the car or at the base of the wall where we had gone back inside the house. It took an hour for the last to wander off to investigate our distraction that time.

 

We got complacent. While we managed to get everything into the car, that third time we just assumed we would drive away once it was all loaded up. A mass of bodies swarmed over the car. We were a boat on an ocean in a storm. I thought they would tip us over or rip the doors off before we got away but our luck held. I had thought driving into them would part them like the Red Sea. The simple fact is that the more that fell, the less grip the wheels had. Worse, I worried that if enough fell under the car they might stop the wheels from reaching the ground at all. Had there been more Infected, we may have never escaped. The windscreen glass cracked, one side window imploded and then enough Infected fell before us that we were free.

 

I was so relieved and still scared that I forgot about driving around to look for abandoned cars to refill our fuel tank. I drove straight back to the main road and then onto the ring-road, taking the first exit that took us back to the motorway and then onto the M1.

 

Lots of debris and broken cars everywhere. We didn't stop. I assumed that these had broken down and were unlikely to yield any precious fuel. We continued until it began to get dark. Surprisingly we did not see a single Infected or anything else. You would think that in a country of over 60 million people that they would be everywhere, but it feels deserted.

 

Parked on the hard shoulder. I did not see the point of leaving the motorway. With few to no Infected around I feel safe enough even with the broken passenger side window. A plastic bag over the hole will do for now, but it leaves us vulnerable.

 

Craig is already asleep. I'm writing this by moonlight. Silent outside. Deathly. Never been anywhere so quiet. It's horrible being able to hear yourself so clearly. I want to be able to turn it all off and become one with the stillness. I feel every noise I make. That's why I am unable to sleep. I know they are out there and I am afraid they can hear me.

Logistics

While supplies are important, the weather is going to be a concern. The kinds of roads we'll be using are going to vanish with heavy snows. With the car it will only take us a few days, but if we loose the car we may be stuck up North for weeks. I'm ignorant of the weather up there, I just assume it's going to be cold and that there will be snow, even in summer. Where's Google when you need it?

Next there is the huge question of what to take with us. We've found a good backpack for me and Craig already has one of his own, so our personal carrying capacity is as good as it gets. Getting the things to the car is a small risk, but on the whole I have split things around what goes in the car (and stays in the car) and what goes in the packs. The packs need to be what we need to survive if we find ourselves alone and away from other resources. The car will take whatever we can squeeze into it that i think is useful, and that we can get into the car before the Infected notice us loading it up. Most of the food and water will stay in the car. Emergency rations only in the packs, though if we don't find more food soon 'emergency' is all we'll have.

The list so far;

Packs

1 x shaving razor (+ 8 blades) If shaved we look less like Infected.

1 x toothbrush

2 x packs dental floss - pretty multipurpose, and great for teeth.

1 x tube toothpaste

1 x bar soap - lasts far longer than shower gels, etc.

1 x hand towel - anything larger is a waste of pack space

1 x small polished metal mirror - mine is actually a makeup mirror, Craig has his own.

1 x pair rubber gloves

1 x medical kit - 2 rolls gauze bandage, 1 box of plasters, 1 tube antiseptic cream, 1 roll black electrical tape, 1 pair scissors.

3 x box matches

1 x disposable lighter

1 x 50m roll strong yarn - Craig has a ball of wool, just as strong.

1 x 50m roll wide brown parcel tape.

1 x large pen knife - Craig has a hunting knife.

1 x change clothing - t-shirt, jeans, 2 pairs boxer shorts, 2 pairs socks.

1 x small battery operated torch - no more batteries.

1 x collapsible umbrella - a tad indulgent but it adds almost no weight.

1 x compass - Craig gave me one of his

1 x small tool-set - hammer, adjustable spanner, screwdriver with multiple heads, pliers

1 x small saucepan

1 x fork, knife, and spoon

1 x plastic plate

1 x plastic cup

1 x tin opener - the kind you stick in and lift. Nothing to turn or break here.

1 x 100m roll of clingfilm - this stuff has 1000 uses.

1 x pack digestive biscuits (full-size)

1 x 250ml bottle water (full)

1 x bottle multivitamins - shared the bottle I found, so we have 22 each

1 x box painkillers (we have 20 paracetamol, 8 Aspirin, and 2 sachets of Lemsip each)

I added a crowbar to my stash, which I can stick into an outer section and remove quickly for easy access. Craig did the same thing with the hammer from his tool-set.

Car

All the remaining food and bottles of water.

1 large sledgehammer

1 large saw

Bag of assorted nails, screws, hooks and steel washers.

Bag of assorted clothing (jeans, jumpers, socks, underwear)

Bag of assorted batteries

Heavy coat each

4 Large blanket

8 Large towels

2 Sleeping bags

1 large water container (2 gallons)

10m hosepipe - We can cut lengths for siphoning purposes

10m rope - Craig's but it will remain in the car.

The lack of batteries for the torches is a minor blow. We've used up the few we had that were the correct size. Craig thought he had a wind-up torch and radio but he hasn't been able to find either so I assume he left them behind at Nont Sarah. A lot of the things on the list we are sure to be able to pick up everywhere, so I am not worried about using them up or running out. Drinkable water we can make so long as we can get a fire going. Food on the other hand is the real problem. If everybody obeyed curfew and stayed in, then most households probably ate their way through their supplies. Searching everywhere house to house will exhaust us, so we need to be smarter about where we look for food.

Anything bulky or heavy or just 'extra' goes in the car. The packs remain light and stay with us, unless we need to travel really fast or quietly. They will remain packed for easy retrieval if we have to leave packs for any period of time. We will keep the weapons (crowbar and hammer) with us at all times. I think we are ready to dodge some Infected now.

 

I'm convinced we'll need more, but the 'what-ifs' will be the death of us, so this list is it.