The Infected (5 page)

Balding spent the next four or five minutes digging in the flower bed in the far right of the garden, giving me a good look at his face. His bottom row of teeth seemed to be either missing or partially shattered, and his right eye was swollen, bruised and weeping that honey-like stuff. In other words, he was the picture of perfect health. The flower bed provided no more earthworms for him, so he stumbled his way out of the garden, tripping over the small step which lead out of the unit, and headed to the left, back towards the pool area and his townhouse, if he still used it as a place to live. Man, that was a harrowing experience. I don’t know what to say... I didn’t learn too much about the infected that I didn’t already know, but at least I was able to confirm that they are seriously slow moving and they don’t give a shit about personal hygiene...

Take care

Sam W

9:10am, May 9

It’s now been five days since Lil phoned to tell me that she was back at Motswari. I have not heard from her since… I haven’t wanted to say anything on here, but shit, I am panicking. Okay, if I rationalise it, then it makes me feel better – she is in probably one of the least populated areas in South Africa where there are more hippos than humans, so the chance of the infected being there are slim. So why hasn’t she called? Or emailed? But then I think that tourists head up that way all the time, and although not in their thousands, whatever this thing is that has affected the infected, it just needs one of them to take a bus up there for it to spread... but she’s fine. I’m sure she is. I hope she is.

12:21pm May 10

It’s Mother’s Day today. Or should have been. I spoke to my Mom and she cried. “Please promise me that you will stay inside and keep safe,” she almost pleaded. I could hear her struggling to hold back more tears so I promised that I would. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep that promise though as I’ve done an inventory of what I have available to eat and drink in my home (it at least kept me busy for an hour or so) and I am getting worried that I will run out eventually and need to go in search of supplies.

This is what I have:

LIQUIDS

* 1 x 2 litre Fanta Grape

* 7 x Coke Zero cans

* 1 x half full Oros mix

* 2 x 1 litre Game energy drink sachets

* 1 x three quarter full Spiced Gold, 1 x full bottle vodka, 1 x half full bottle gin (not good for quenching the thirst but great for those long nights)

* Then I fill up my bath, bathroom basin and kitchen sink up every day – very quietly, basically a drip – just in case the water supply all of a sudden stops. I’ll then at least have time to make another plan

PANTRY CUPBOARD FOOD

* 3 x tins of onion and tomato

* 2 x tins of tuna

* 1 x tin of guava halves

* 1 x tin of sweetcorn (I don’t know why I have it – I hate the stuff)

* 1 x tin chunky apricot jam

* 2 x packs two minute noodles

* 1 x bottle vinegar

* ½ a thing of Bovril

* ¾ thing of peanut butter

* About ½ a kg of rice

* 2 x Snickers (the best chocolate in the world)

* 6 x packs of Mini Cheddars

* 2 x big packets chips (Big Korn Bites and Ghost Pops for those interested)

* 3 x breakfast bars

* 1 x box of ice cream cones

* 1 x bottle of olive oil

* 9 x eggs

* 3 x potatoes (which need to be eaten soon – they’re already starting to go green)

FRIDGE FOOD

* ½ a bottle of salad dressing

* Full jar of mayonnaise

* Small block of cheese

* ¾ bottle of Tomato Sauce

* 1 x onion

* Bottle of barbeque sauce

* ¼ jar of Peppadews

FREEZER FOOD

* 7 x smoked viennas

* 1 x pack of bacon

* 1 x pack of four steaks

Apart from some coffee and tea, a little bit of sugar and some spices, that’s what I have in the house to eat. All the fresh stuff has either been eaten or gone rotten, and I’ve run out of bread and milk. It’s not too bad though – if I estimate three small to medium meals a day, I should be okay for another two weeks.

So while the food side of things is not too bleak, I am seriously struggling with boredom though. I now totally understand the term ‘cabin fever’. My day typically involves a good three hours of staring out the kitchen window noting the movements and numbers of the infected while listening to my iPod (very quietly!). I’m beginning to listen to a lot of folky stuff – don’t know if it’s the cabin fever or loneliness or what – but Liam Finn, Right Away, Great Captain! and Bon Iver are going down especially well.

I flush my toilet only every second day after a twenty minute stake out routine from all my vantage points to make sure that none of the infected are within an audible range, and I try and get out, leopard crawling, onto the balcony for at least half an hour a day. I lie there in the sun, out of view, either reading or simply staring at the sky. Sometimes I daydream or drift off, sure that I can hear Lily calling me from inside. But it’s never her, it’s just my imagination.

Sometimes I watch TV to pass the time – only during the day though as the flickering ambient light at night, even with the curtains closed, is sure to attract attention. All the SABC channels are dead, a static “Due to technical difficultys (their spelling mistake, not mine) we have lost signal. Our engineers are working on the problem.” Well, they’ve been working on the problem for three days now without any change. eTV is no better – their channel is just snow – at least they aren’t pretending like its gonna get better. Satellite as well is just dead – I can turn on the decoder but it spends all day “Searching for signal” before turning itself off. Luckily I have a few DVD’s left after flogging a lot on Bid or Buy. So I’ve been rewatching Supernatural season 1 (it takes on a whole new meaning now that the world is a different place), a couple of Simpson’s DVD’s and The Long Way Down, where, when the world was still just a slightly crazy place, Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman drove from the top of Scotland to Cape Town on motorbikes.

The rest of my time I try and spend as normally as possible. I wake up at around 6am (no alarm though... I used to struggle to wake up at 10am with one – amazing what worldwide carnage can do to you!), I then spend two minutes looking out each window (bathroom, bedroom, spare bedroom, lounge and finally the kitchen), just making sure that nothing has changed drastically overnight. I have a cold wash in the shower – not from running water but from a two litre coke bottle, filled from the bath and with holes in the bottom to simulate a shower (that reminds me – when I do eventually go out I need to get more soap, shampoo, toilet paper and tooth paste. I must make a note of that). Then while shivering like a leaf in a strong breeze I brush my teeth, put in my contact lenses and get dressed as I normally would.

I tend to wear the same clothes for at least two days in a row – there doesn’t seem to be much point in changing as I am not doing enough to work up a sweat, and anyways, nobody bloody sees me. I’ll let the pile of dirty clothes pile up in the corner until I can’t ignore it anymore, then I’ll do a wash in one of the basins and hang the clothes up on my one clothes horse – a badly rusting pile of metal poles that somehow is still standing – my mom gave it to me when I moved out of home, and I can remember her having it when I was a little dude, so it’s at least a couple of decades old. It does the job though.

I make myself a cup of coffee, turning off the kettle before it reaches full boil as it can get quite noisy. Besides, I enjoy my coffee lukewarm at the best of times. I then put on some music while I make my breakfast (‘make’ is a pretty loose term as I generally have a breakfast bar, fruit (until that ran out) and yoghurt (until I finished those too). Now I’ll just snack on some chips or Mini Cheddars a bit later. Then my first vigil at the kitchen window overlooking Erasmus Road begins. With pen in hand, notebook in front of me, I peek out a little gap in the blinds and monitor the movement of the infected between two light posts, making a cross in the first column for every different individual that ventures between the two posts. In the second column I put down a number if they are alone or in a group so that I can get an idea of their… I guess ‘social habits’ is the way to put it. The third and final column notes their speed of movement – one slash for very slow, two slashes for relatively slow, three for slow, four for relatively quick and five for very quick. I have yet to make more than three slashes.

After about half an hour of this I check in with first my folks, then Johan or Owen at Eastgate and then Melanie in Durban. I talk to them inside my cupboard in my bedroom, which is on the opposite side of the townhouse to Erasmus Road (you can’t be too careful). Then I’ll usually update this blog, surf the internet to see if there is any news (although it’s been seriously quiet lately) and then watch some TV. I’ll usually do another three shifts of monitoring the movement between the two light posts if I feel up to it – one around midday, one late afternoon and sometimes one at night (luckily the street lights are still working so I can quite clearly see whatever movement there is).

That’s my day really. I try have supper while watching the sunset from the lounge window before ‘locking up’. Oh, in case you are wondering what I do for supper, sometimes I cook but I try not to just in case the aromas arouse some interest. When I do get a whiff of a fire from elsewhere – I hate to think what is on fire and why – then I will take a chance and fry up some steak or bacon or an egg or two on the stove, but usually its things like two-minute noodles with grated cheese or tinned fruit. Not a-la-carte dining I am sure you will agree.

Before I go to bed (which is now the bigger of the two couches in the lounge – for some reason I feel safer there), I make sure that the doors are locked (I don’t know why I check the front door because I haven’t even opened it in five days), and barricade myself in by pushing a bookshelf and other miscellaneous furniture silently up against it as an extra measure. Thankfully none of the windows can be reached, unless one of the infected is about six metres tall. My balcony does join up to the unit next to me – an idiot Steve and his teenage son who were luckily (or unluckily) away on holiday when this all happened. Because I don’t have the materials to make a barrier between the balconies, and cos I might, but hopefully won’t need to use it as an escape route, I have just filled that section of the balcony with all my empty Coke cans. Judging from what I have seen, the infected won’t be able to climb over the wall without landing on some of the cans and, I just hope, alerting me to their presence.

I will usually listen to some music for an hour or two until I actually feel sleepy – my iPod dock is coming in really handy as I don’t think I would be able to listen to earphones or headphones – the thought of blocking myself off to the noise of the outer world just scares me. When I eventually drift off to sleep I dream about Lil.

Take care

Sam W

5:54pm, May 13

Fuck, its cold. Winter is definitely here. Contemplated turning on the gas heater but it is a noisy job. And I don’t know how the smell of gas will affect the infected. Rather safe than dead.

I can’t get hold of Melanie. I’ve been trying for two days. The first day and a half it just rang but now it just goes straight to voicemail. I hope the battery didn’t die from me constantly phoning, but, unfortunately, I think that’s the case. About the fourth or fifth time I called though, it was ‘answered’, but all I could hear was the sound of something dripping. I hung on, calling Melanie’s name as loud as I dared from the uncomfort of my cramped cupboard, but heard nothing until, maybe in the distance, although I couldn’t be sure, I heard a groaning sound. The sound of the infected. I think… I think.

Sam

10:24pm, May 13

I couldn’t sleep – kept thinking of Melanie. So here I am, a blanket draped over me and my screen – my usual nightly way of being on the computer. She and I used to walk home from high school the same way when we were younger, so for almost every afternoon for five years we would leisurely make our way the two kilometres home chatting about, well, anything and everything really. I did go through a phase when I had a huge crush on her. I never told her. Maybe I should’ve?

Anyways, she’s gorgeous, always has been, and even though we hadn’t kept in touch as often as we maybe should have, we still have a bond, formed over many a kilometre, which I don’t think will ever go away. Which is why I feel so sick inside now. I should have got her brother’s fucking cell number – I didn’t even think about it.