The Infected

UN Ground Mission, Reconnaissance Team 12. Daily report:

Location:
Bloemfontein, South Africa

Miles covered:
14

Food status:
Substantial

Fuel status:
Critical

Activity of infected:
Minimal (only three terminated today)

Today we have been scouting for diesel for the transporter – probably less than a 100 miles left, thus fuel levels are critical. Most of the stranded vehicles in the vicinity have already been drained.

The team is still searching the compound we came across. Zero signs of living, minimal interaction with deceased.

Team 11 missed a locked bunker on previous pass-overs of the compound. Many electronic devices recovered plus cash and contraband. Our team spent yesterday working through the laptops via a solar powered charger also found in the bunker. Most were dead-ends, but we did find a first-hand account of the local events unfolding at ‘ground zero’ level in a blog on one laptop – have pasted it below via the comms channel for your perusal. We suggest forwarding it to Control for further dissection. Time stamp puts the origin of the text around 2011/2012. Author and others at large.

Team 12 will be departing at 6:00 tomorrow and will reconnect, as usual, at 15:00.

Copied file below.

Team 12 out.   

12:17pm, April 17

Blogee’s, bloggers and blogettes. Welcome and hi. The sun is shining, I feel refreshed and there are just four more sleeps until I get to see my girl again. Yippee! Sorry that I haven’t been able to keep my loyal readers (hahaha) as updated as I would like – as I have mentioned before, I aim for a post every three days, but sometimes, you know, you just can’t get around to it (read: can’t be bothered). So what’s been up in Sam Ward’s world since my last post? Well, let me see…

My iPod is rapidly closing in on the 20 000 mark since I discovered
www.emusic.com
– my latest downloads include New Art Riot, an early Manic Street Preachers EP, a couple Super Furry Animals tracks that I didn’t have, and a new discovery, Helicopter Helicopter, a US (I think?) rock band who remind me of Relient K, Motion City Soundtrack, Fountains of Wayne etc, etc. Melodic power-pop, put it that way. So I’ve been listening to all of that lately as well as rediscovering the brilliance that is the Gaslight Anthem – they seriously rock in an old school, Bruce Springsteen kind of way. Can’t wait for their third album if their first two efforts are anything to go by.

With regards my guitar refinishing project for those of you who are interested, I have placed my order from Guitar Fetish in the United States and should be receiving my package in a few weeks with my black Telecaster pickguard, black tuners, a black control plate and some seriously expensive replacement pick-ups. Woohoo! My recent power tool purchases have been well worth the money too – the Black & Decker sander and the Bosch drill are my favourites, and even though I won’t need it for the guitar, the Makita nail gun keeps me busy when I have nothing to do! I’m getting seriously accurate with it now – I can hit a business card from across the room. Will post some pics of my progress on the guitar when I have some time.

Work-wise, things are still picking up, even with all the doom of the (cue a crescendo of violins and drums…) THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN (da, daa, da!) I still believe that going freelance was the best thing for me – working from home is awesome and I am getting quite a few small design jobs (company invites, packaging for products etc.), so the money is there. I just need that one big client who will ease any of my financial worries (any takers???). If I could do that – design their in-house newsletter, company promo’s, ads, those types of things, then I would be sorted. But for now I am just happy being my own boss and I think leaving my old job was the best thing that I ever did. I just don’t think I could ever work for someone else again. Working by your own rules is very liberating, and even though I probably work as hard, if not harder than before, if I want to take a day off to lie in bed and catch up on season 4 of Lost that I have PVR’ed, then I can. No questions asked. And at 25, I think I still have plenty of time to grow my ‘empire’.

So that’s about it for now. I’ve got to be up early tomorrow – by 10 at the latest – cos I need to start cleaning up the place and buying groceries for when Lily arrives. Did I mention that I am excited?

See ya

Sam W

6:33am, April 21

So this is what it looks like in the morning? Very interesting. I have been up since about quarter to six – I woke up and realised that I’d be seeing my girlfriend today for the first time in two months! I cannot wait. So much so that I wasn’t able to get back to sleep! So here I am, coffee in hand, morning news on the TV and updating my blog. My blonde hair, in serious need of a cut (two things: I have always thought that I was blonde, but Lil is adamant that my hair is brown… okay, it has got darker over time; and its getting too long to put up into the usual Mohawk – at least am saving money on gel) is all over the place – I look like the drummer from a bad 80s rock band. Babe, if you read this, I can’t wait to hold you tonight! See you at the airport in a few hours and, you’ve probably guessed this by now, but we’ll be sleeping in late tomorrow. If someone else is reading this – which I highly doubt – mind your own business.

So my well documented internet worries are now a thing of the past. Out the window, literally, goes the 3G – I’m going to have to pick it up later or someone’s gonna drive over it, and you never know when I might need it – and in its place, a brand spanking new, uncapped, always connected, not even an earthquake will disrupt my browsing, broadband line is in its place. Telkom were amazingly, and surprisingly, helpful, efficient and, well, just damn good. Uncapped internet is even cheaper than my 5GB 3G was… but what I save on the internet I will probably have to spend on a bigger iPod as I will be downloading a shitload of music. Beginning. Right. Now. Obscure 90s band’s live bootlegs and B-side compilations, you are mine!

Elections tomorrow. I have decided who to vote for. I think. I’m starting to feel like a contestant from Survivor going into the booth to cast my vote. Except it wont be on a deserted island, it will be at a community centre. And there won’t be any cameras. Or presenters named Jeff. But apart from that it’s basically the same isn’t it?

See ya

Sam W

3:48pm, April 21

Two posts in one day. You may be wondering what is happening? You may be thinking that this guy has absolutely no life. And you would be right. But the real reason that I am posting is because I am trying to waste away some time before I pick Lily up from the airport. This day is draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaging like you cannot believe. And by the way, for those of you who are interested, Lily is landing at Lanseria Airport not O.R Tambo. Apparently you can’t fly from the great metropolis that is Nelspruit to ORT, so I have to battle the traffic through to the north to go pick her up instead of a leisurely drive around the corner. But it will be worth it when I see my little game rangerette!

Leaving in nine minutes.

See ya

Sam W

1:22am, April 22

She’s here! And she’s fast asleep! Shame, poor thing. She looks as beautiful as ever, my previous descriptions on here not doing her justice. Got to the airport a bit late ‘cos of the stupid traffic, but she had only just come through when I got there, so at least I didn’t have to find some way to pass the time anxiously waiting for her plane to land. When she did arrive it was like one of those movies where you run to each other in slow motion – then I stopped goofing around and ran to her in normal speed.

Man, it is good to have her back. Every time she goes back for her two months at the game reserve it gets harder… But I’m not going to think about that now. We still have a week and a half until we have to say goodbye again.

I knew it but was hoping that I would be wrong, but it took us almost two hours to get home thanks to the traffic, but… wait, I almost forgot. How gross is this? At the airport, as we were kissing and hugging each other hello, I saw this old man, well not that old, probably in his late fifties – graying, receding hairline, just haggard looking, but not in a hobo sort of way – he was wearing a suit which is not your typical bum look. Well anyway, out of the corner of my eye I see him chundering into a bin. And I’m not talking about a little spew here, but rather projectile vomiting. And then, when we were stuck in traffic and at a complete standstill just past the Marlboro off ramp, I look to my right and this attractive girl, maybe in her late twenties, is doing the same thing, but just straight onto her dashboard. Weird. And seriously gross. Lily didn’t see either of these events and I don’t think she believes me, but man, I could have done without seeing that.

But as the traffic finally started moving, I swear, and I wish I could go back and have a look (don’t you ever wish that life had a PVR rewind button?), but I think I saw the woman licking up her vomit from the steering wheel and dashboard! How strange is that!? But you know what, I was trying to avoid hitting the idiot in the Subaru in front of me and listen to Lily tell me about her close encounter with a mother leopard at the same time, so I may not have been concentrating too hard. It did conjure up images of a sick Dirty Sanchez stunt though!

Anyway, so yeah, we got home a bit late, but I was still able to surprise Lily with a home cooked meal of chicken fillet wrapped in bacon and cooked in a honey and mustard sauce (thanks to GothGirl 21 for the recipe and the Spar at the end of the street for the honey, which I realised had forgotten to buy when we got back!) We were both suitably impressed that we didn’t keel over and die from food poisoning, and celebrated by taking a shower together and… and if you think I am going to tell you any more than that then you have stumbled onto the wrong kind of blog…

So here we are, Lily is snoring ever so slightly, I am starting to get a nice, fuzzy headache, possibly from the two bottles of red wine we shared, and tomorrow is a public holiday. All is well in the world of Sam Ward.

See ya

Sam W

2:51pm, April 22

We are off shortly for a few sunny public holiday afternoon drinks at the Harvard Café at the Rand Airport – Lily has always had a thing about planes. The weather here in Johannesburg seems to be turning and we may have to take an extra layer of clothes. Why that would be of interest to you, I have no idea.

Be good people, and happy holiday!

See ya

Sam W

8:03am, April 25

Have I got a lot to tell you? Shit! Remember that old man at the airport and the woman in the car that I saw blowing chunks? Yeah? Well, get this… Lily and I were at the Harvard Café on Friday, the public holiday, just receiving our fourth, or fifth, or maybe sixth round of drinks…whatever, it’s irrelevant. Our waiter, an athletic Nigerian guy, comes around, brings me my draught and Lily a vodka, lime and soda, and then, all of a sudden, makes this gurgling sound and starts to throw up on our table. I grabbed Lil and pulled her back, just in time as it happens, as he starts swaying from side to side and spraying everywhere, in my beer, on the table, on the chairs. It was sick. Literally.

I’d noticed during the course of the afternoon that his right eye had been weeping quite a bit and looked pretty swollen, but hey, I wasn’t going to pry and ask him about it. So there he is, vomiting away, and hell, it must have gone on for like a minute or pretty close to a full sixty seconds. Nobody said anything, they just sat there staring, and it was pretty busy, I mean, it was pretty packed seeing as it was a public holiday. Suddenly he just stopped throwing up, flopped down at our table and closed his eyes. I didn’t look to closely, but there may have been blood in the vomit… Still nobody moved or said anything. I grabbed my keys and wallet from the table (I left my sunglasses ‘cos the guy had puked all over them and I wasn’t gonna touch them. And anyway, they were just cheap Adidas rip-off’s from Bruma flea market). And then we got out of there as fast as we could. Only when we were half way home did I realise that in our rush we had left without paying for our drinks. No one had stopped us, and as Lily said, “There is no way we are going back to that place today. Or ever again.” Seriously weird and seriously upsetting.

So since we got back I’ve been doing a bit of research on line and this same kind of thing has been happening all over the country – there was a guy in the Western Cape who was pulled over by a cop, and as the cop was leaning in to get the guy’s driver’s license, he started projectile vomiting right into the guys face. Horrible. I’ve emailed the guy who wrote the story a couple of times but haven’t got any replies yet. Have you heard of anything like this? Lil is obviously pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I think spending 80% of her time in the bush has distanced her somewhat from the, how would you put it… from the human condition maybe? But she’ll be okay. She’s a tough cookie.