I've been scouring the AM band, there are a few foreign language stations broadcasting, one in French, the other is possibly Polish though it could just as easily be Russian or Czech. There was something on FM earlier, somewhere around 99.8. It was faint, and indistinct, but might have been a pirate station somewhere, and I’m sure that the voices I heard were in English. How far does an FM signal carry? Could there be someone in London with a generator?
I’m trying not to spend so much time watching Them. I start to panic every time I see one move, convinced it's going to head this way, unable to relax until it's disappeared up the road or returned again to that torpid crouch. It's not conducive, as Jen's Granddad used to say. But hiding here under the blankets, it seems... I don't know. I suppose I just want to be doing something.
18:30, 20
th
March.
The radio is broadcasting a looped message. Yesterday there was a slight cough during the broadcast. It was there again tonight. Still, that makes sense. Why have someone actually in a studio twenty four hours a day when they could be doing something productive?
Nonetheless, it's disappointing. That broadcast was my proof that there was someone else alive out there. I know that there's Jen and the evacuees and I know that between me and wherever she is that there probably are other survivors, but I don't
know,
I can't be certain
. This broadcast changed all that. It was proof, real tangible proof that out there was a community who had enough confidence in their own security that they could risk finding a broadcasting station, enough power to spare to make the broadcast and enough
food to spare someone to sit by a microphone. That cough has turned that proof into nothing more than evidence that someone
was
alive.
Seven o’clock and it's already getting dark. Exercise and bed.
Day 9, 69 days to go.
10:00, 21
st
March.
Woke up. Exercised. Washed. Ate the last of the cold pancakes. Then I went back to watching Them. I know I said I wouldn't, that it wasn't healthy, but what else is there to do?
They've no economy of movement, rather it's as if each command to each limb is sent separately and no new command can be sent until that individual movement is complete. Lift left leg, bend knee, let left leg fall, lift right leg, bend knee, let right leg fall. It repeats over and over until They hit an obstacle, then They'll edge to the left or the right and try again. There doesn’t appear to be any conscious reasoning behind it.
They're still continuing their slow exodus. No, not an exodus. The evacuation was an exodus. Nor is this a migration. I need to stop describing Them in human terms, it's a sort of anthropomorphising that will lead me to think They're still alive. A flood, then? Or a torrent? A river flowing ever onward, never to join the sea?
No, no, no, that's way too poetical, especially for me.
All the zombies I'd spotted yesterday are gone, replaced by a new load. There's nothing much to distinguish one group from another. It's the same mix of generic winter clothing. No it's not!
I've double checked. I can't count any uniforms. Is that odd? I suppose that depends on where They are coming from. But with everyone who had one ordered to wear it, with the police and thousands of others hastily put into ill fitting camouflage, then surely I should have seen some by now. Unless they decided to take their uniforms off. I suppose the soldiers who chose to stay with their families were deserters after all. Oh, I know, you think that would be an obvious thing to do? Well it would be, but it assumes the deserters would have had time to change clothes as well as clothes to change into.
Am I just reading too much into this? I used to do that all the time, extrapolating too much from too little data. It was why I was dreadful at predicting election results from exit polls.
I'm going back downstairs today to make a better inventory. Yes, that's what I'll do, anything that'll take me away from this window. Other than a secret tunnel to a long forgotten but still well stocked bunker, I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but if I'm going to leave here someday soon then I'll need more than just the clothes on my back. Besides, going up and down the stairs very definitely counts as exercise.
17:00, 21
st
March.
The basement, I'd forgotten about the basement! That almost warrants two exclamation marks. I didn't forget about it, not really. It's not a proper basement, let alone a cellar, it's nothing more than a long tunnel the length and width of the front hall, dug out to about five feet seven. I know that because I keep banging my head whenever I go down there. It, like those in most Victorian houses this size, was really meant as nothing more than a place to store the coal (there's a coal hole at one end, now completely painted over. I suppose at a pinch I could use it as an escape route, but only if I could get outside and spend a couple of hours unsticking it). It stores the fuse box, the electricity meter and whatever stuff my tenants wanted to dump down there.
I haven't been down there for two years, not since the fuses blew on Christmas Eve. I was meant to spend the holidays in Northumberland but had missed the last train to the north. This honestly wasn't my fault. What made it worse was that Jen and I had gone down to the station together and were both on the train when I got a call. Since we were in a quiet carriage I got off the train to take it. The doors closed as I was standing on the platform and Jen laughed, she actually laughed, as the train pulled out of the station.
Of course she did, she was going off to her parents for the holidays and I was stuck in London until the garage where I stored my car opened again on Boxing Day. I got back here to find the fuses had blown and spent a very unpleasant hour rummaging through the accumulated detritus of years trying to find the box. Looking at the basement this afternoon I'm not sure anyone's been down there since.
But I digress. Victory and achievement and success! Of a sort...
No weapons, no secret stashes of guns and food indicating that Grace was actually a Russian spy and no escape route. None that I could find anyway, but the basement is full of treasures. Most of it, in fact almost all of it, is useless in the current situation. There's some mouldering camping gear that could probably be resurrected, but I'm not planning to sleep outside. Similarly, if I was a bit more skilled I could turn the weird electric thing, that's either for curling hair or stripping paint, into something truly deadly, but as it is I am resting on my laurels this evening over my find of a bike.
I'm not sure whose it is since I never saw any of them ever ride one. The wheels look OK, save the tyres need pumping (the pump was attached!). There's some rust on the frame, the brakes look more than a little dodgy but all in all it seems sound.
Yes, I know I can't ride it just yet but the cast will come off sometime. At worst I can always sling some bags on it and use it as a pack mule. I saw a lot of evacuees doing that.
20:00, 21
st
March.
The bike got me thinking about transport and that got me wondering, is the car outside, the government one sent to collect me, an automatic? If it is then there's no reason I couldn't drive it. The keys, well, I know the driver turned the engine off. They'll be in the ignition or on the floor, or at worst, in his pockets. I guess the risk is in the time it would take to check whether the car would start. A risk of getting trapped inside the car, with Them outside pounding against the glass until it broke.
I did say I was going to start taking risks, but maybe this is one too far. It's worth thinking on.
09:30, 22
nd
March.
Exercised then breakfast. One half bowl of muesli, and that's the last of it gone. Another three days and I'll have finished my looted cereals, then it's pancakes until the eggs run out. And then? No, I’m not going to think about that, not yet.
The car. I find my eyes drawn to it more and more. It presents an attractive idea, of a quick escape, but how practical is it? Will it work? Where would I drive it? To the south, east and west lies nothing but mile after mile of suburbs. Roads could easily be blocked either by man or the undead. To the north lies the river.
My mind is as drawn to the river as my eyes are to the car. The Thames is only three and a half miles away and the undead can't swim. I’m only basing this on the video footage I've seen, but I’m pretty sure there weren't any reports about Them swimming, not substantiated reports from reputable sources at least.
There was hearsay and rumour of course, but there were rumours that They could fly and change shape, so I don't know if I should pay any credence to the ones saying They can swim.
Once I get to the river all I'd have to do is find a boat and float out to the sea. That has to be easier than trying to walk, cycle or even drive down to the south coast. With so much of the post-evacuation plan, what little of it there was, dependent upon fishing I'd be bound to be picked up, wouldn't I? Even if the evacuation failed, especially if it failed, surely I'd be most likely to find other survivors at sea.
It's hard to think coherently. Is it because of the lack of vitamins or the lack of human voices? I've tried talking to myself, but I find it strange, slower than I can think and unsatisfying.
Focus. Stay Focused. The car. I've been looking at the car and replaying what happened, trying to work out if it's worth the risk.
The text came on 10
th
February at 9:12. I've still got it. “Car coming. Maybe 1 hour. Be ready. Jen.” That was it. My last message from her. If my tenants had only stayed a few more days they could have driven out with me. Surely the four of them could have easily subdued the zombies out there. Even if the driver had still been killed, the five of us could have driven off. We could all have been safe.
When the message came I grabbed my jacket, threw my laptop and the hard drive into my bag and then sat by the window, waiting.
By that time I'd already seen a few of Them. The first time had been on the 8
th
, at around tea-time. By then the streets were deserted. I'd not seen anyone out there all day. I know it was tea-time, because I was sitting by the window sipping a brew, just watching and waiting, my eyes flicking between the street and the phone, waiting for Jen to call. That's when I saw him, just walking down the street. He was wearing a tracksuit, not a cheap one, but the kind professionals wear to run up and down mountains. At first I thought, perhaps, he was a solitary type who'd decided to wait until after the evacuation and try on his own. Maybe he'd just bought the gear to look cool at the annual company away day and finally he'd found a proper use for it. By the time he'd got level with my house I realised that it wasn't a he, not any more.
There weren't any visible wounds, there was just something about the way that it walked that told me it was one of Them. It was almost out of sight when it suddenly stopped. I’m not sure why, but I think I heard a scream from somewhere not far off. It paused only a moment before heading in that direction, faster and more purposefully.
That was the first and I saw a handful more before the car came, always moving, never chasing anyone though. Never attacking.
I was in the bathroom when the car finally pulled up. It was late, almost two hours had gone by since I'd received the text. By the time I got over to the window the engine was off though the driver was still inside. Whether he was waiting for me, or whether he was checking the address, who knows. I was still debating if, since I didn't have his number, I should call Jen or should just open the window and shout down to him, when the car door opened and he got out. He looked up at the window and raised a hand to his eyes. I don't think he could see me through the tinted glass and was just shielding his eyes from the sun but I waved back anyway.
He took two steps away from the car, paused, then went back, bent over and reached in for something, I think from the glove box. I couldn't make out what he was doing, but it took his full attention for half a minute.
It was long enough for a scrawny woman, she must have been at least seventy when she'd died, to claw at his leg. She had been in the alleyway that runs between the two houses opposite, hidden from his view and mine by the multi-coloured cluster of bins. Unlike every other one of Them I'd seen and every one that I've seen since, she wasn't wearing thick winter walking clothes, rather she was dressed only in a thin nightgown.
I watched as he turned, as she raised a hand to his shoulder and pulled herself up his body. He grabbed at her arms and tried to push her away, to hold her back, but she kept violently thrashing, her mouth snapping open and closed. With each twitch and jerk her teeth got closer to his skin. Then there was a pop as her right arm dislocated, giving her the reach to bite down on his neck. In two ferocious snapping bites she'd virtually severed it. His body hasn't moved since.
But he did turn off the engine off before he got out of the car.