Authors: Gregg Cocking
My first snag though was less than thirty seconds away – I turned onto Erasmus Road and then right onto Pallister Road, as I had done on my way to the shops, but went towards Terrace Road which would take me to the highway. I turned onto Terrace Road, pitch black of course because the street lights were obviously out, and was met by a sea of lights. I got quite a fright until I realised that it was just my headlights reflecting back off hundreds of cars. Shit. Only then did I remember the scene when I took Mrs. Myburg to her sister-in-law’s place on that first day after I saw the news report of the scenes in Sandton Square. I remember thinking to myself at the time that they were just going to be sitting ducks – judging by the amount of cars scattered down the road as far as my headlights shone, maybe I was right. So that put paid to the idea of going that way around. This was going to be a fucking long journey.
After a few more aborted attempts I eventually managed to get to a highway (and I eventually managed to find out how to turn down the volume of that annoying pseudo-American voice on the GPS that kept on telling me to “when possible, make a u-turn”. Lady… these are special circumstances, I cannot just make a u-turn wherever I want to…
The roads were not actually too bad though, and apart from having to retrace my steps on a number of occasions because of either a seven car pile-up or, just simply, a maze of abandoned cars, there was always a way around, even if it took an extra twenty or thirty minutes. At first I would get agitated, but hey, there is no real rush. Sure, I want to see Lil more than anything else in the world and being ‘safe’ would be a nice feeling to experience again, but if it takes a month to get there, then you know what, it will take me a month. I am at peace with that.
Once I had got over the eeriness of it all – no lights, deserted roads, abandoned car after abandoned car, constant and steady rain – I actually quite liked it. I put on my Bloemfontein Road Trip playlist, turned up the volume (using flaps on the steering wheel – how cool is that?) and when I could, which was admittedly not that often and not for long stretches, I put my foot down and enjoyed the power of the Audi R8. My Audi R8.
I drove for about four and a half hours until the sun came up – I was just outside of the Johannesburg CBD by this time. I say that the sun came up because it is an expression – I didn’t actually see it, but the grayness around me started to get lighter. I hadn’t seen any of the infected yet, but to be honest, I had not exactly been looking. As the sky lightened and I decided to take a break, I started looking for them. They were fucking everywhere.
At first I didn’t believe my eyes, but as the sun tried in vain to break through the rain clouds, the world around me lightened and I became aware of a hidden world just out of sight, just out of my view. Their world… They were all around, and wherever I looked – if I looked hard enough, that is – I would see them. In doorways, hiding from the rain in the shelter of the abandoned cars, huddled under large trees – wherever there was shelter from the rain, there was at least one of the infected. And as I watched them as I drove slowly past, they watched me too. Had they been there all along? Had they been watching me for the last couple of hours? Thinking of this made me feel sick.
But they made no attempt to come for me. I could see in the eyes of the ones that were close enough that they really wanted to. They desperately wanted to. But they didn’t, and that made me feel a bit better. They obviously did not like water one teeny little bit. I found a place to stop which was pretty far away from any abandoned cars and which was flanked by open ground on either side – none of the infected to be seen. Thunder grumbled overhead as I turned off the radio (but not the car, I didn’t want to take that unnecessary chance) and I have never enjoyed a sound so much. I climbed out of the car, felt the wet tarmac under my feet and stretched – it wasn’t meant as a ‘tease’ towards the infected, but I guess it could have been construed as one. I had been sitting in a car for ages and was stiff and tired.
I took the opportunity to fill up the car with another balloon of petrol as I didn’t know what the future would hold – I didn’t want to be in the middle of an infested infected area and be needing to get out to refuel. I used one and a half balloons by the way. I had a snack of some stale biscuits and had to make a tough choice – I was tired, so was I going to have a quick power nap in the open when the infected knew exactly where I was, or carry on going into the unknown where maybe it would stop raining and I would have to keep driving for days? You know I like my sleep, so guess which option I chose…
I kept the car running and double and triple check that the doors were both locked and that the windows were closed. I also set my watch alarm to go off every fifteen minutes – this wasn’t ideal, but I figured that I could have a quick glance around me when the alarm went off to make sure that a) it was still raining, and b) none of the infected had suddenly and miraculously lost their fear of rain and water and were high tailing it my way. It doesn’t sound like it could have been relaxing, but it was, and I managed to do this for two hours and forty five minutes before I wasn’t able to fall asleep again between the alarm sounding. It was refreshing and gave me that kick up the arse that I needed to keep going for the rest of the day.
So I left my little spot after having a quick wee against a billboard for a women’s magazine emblazoned with the cover slug: Live Your Best Life! That made me chuckle as I made my way back to the car, each step doubtlessly followed by who knows how many hungry and angry eyes. The rain continued to fall and I was happy.
I drove for the rest of the day without incident, and sure enough, as I got further and further away from the huge metropolis that is Johannesburg, my sightings of the infected got fewer and fewer. In some places the rain seemed to slow down almost to a stop, leaving my heart in my mouth, but luckily each time it would gain in speed and heaviness within the next kilometre or so, allowing me to breathe easy again. That night, after the sun had gone down, I came across an empty factory a few hundred metres off the off ramp of the highway, and although the voice on the GPS again asked me to make a u-turn, I ignored her and drove slowly, and with my lights off, into this semi industrial area. The factory slash warehouse that I had seen from the highway was a great place to spend the night – nothing worth taking as what food had been there at the time that this all started was now nothing more than mould stains on the sparsely fitted kitchenette at the back – but it was open, off the beaten track enough for me to feel safe and offered a quick, unobstructed route back to the highway… just in case… The sleep was uncomfortable, but I never expected it to be luxurious in the R8 with my pillow and my blanket for company, but I would rather toss and turn all night in the safety of the car than sleep out in the open. Who knows, maybe that will change after a few weeks of this?
I woke up to my alarm at 6am (and the comforting sound of rain on the corrugated iron roof of the deserted factory). I had a quick scrub down, brushed my teeth and made myself some cold coffee – it’s odd how accustomed to something you get over time – and got ready for another day of driving.
I opened the large metal sliding doors of the warehouse with a loud and deafening screech – again, my mind had been playing tricks on me and had considered the worst – an army of the infected waiting silently for me to present myself to them as I opened the doors, yet all that confronted me was more rain and a sense of excitement – I have never really been one for travelling, preferring to fly whenever possible, and when, if needing to drive, coercing someone else to get behind the driver’s seat. Yet today I was ready… possibly because Lil, my amazing and beautiful girlfrie… sorry, fiancé… would be my destination, and maybe, just maybe because I was enjoying driving and being out. After all those months inside my ‘wee’ little townhouse I could now go wherever the hell I wanted (after taking into account that there may be some of the infected in the way though) and I was enjoying the freedom much as I would imagine someone recently let out of prison would. I climbed into the car, put on my iPod which I charged overnight, and hit the road.
The day was pretty uneventful – the usual detours, u-turns and backtracking were done – apart from meeting my first ‘travellers’ on route. Jayson and Marie were a young couple, maybe just a bit younger than me, and we met on the highway as I backtracked to the next off ramp due to a serious backlog of cars – maybe thirty or forty stranded on the highway. I was thinking to myself that a motorbike would make things so much easier when it came to obstacles like that when I saw one coming towards me. “Yip, if I had a motorbike like them, I would be halfway to Bloemfontein by now,” I thought. Only when the bike got closer and started to slow and the two people on the bike waved did I realise what was actually going on. This wasn’t some hallucination – they were real living people (or the infected who had learned how to ride a motorbike, but somehow I doubted it). I snapped back to reality and slammed on the brakes as I sped past them, their heads snapping behind them in bewilderment, probably thinking, hey, what the hell is that guy’s problem? I screeched to a stop, feeling like a getaway driver in one of those action movies where the car almost slides sideways to a halt.
I got out just as they turned around and headed back to me – I had already noticed that there were two of them on the bike but only really comprehended it then as they approached me again. As they pulled up next to my car and climbed off, taking their helmets off simultaneously, I reconsidered – I wouldn’t want to be on a bike in these circumstances… firstly, your stuff – although these two people wore back packs (I still wasn’t able to tell the sexes at this point when they were in full bike gear), the amount of stuff I had in the car would never fit on a bike. Secondly, I would feel way too vulnerable to attack just sitting on the back of a bike. My deliberations were cut short as they placed their helmets on the red leather seat of the red and white bike. There was a guy and a girl, and surprisingly, it had been the girl who had been driving. She was gorgeous… Okay, now I am totally in love with Lily, and seeing her in pictures still takes my breath away (I would constantly visit her Facebook page to browse through the photos of her when I was stuck back in my townhouse). But this girl was… well, hot wasn’t really the right word – it just seems too crass – stunning? Beautiful? I don’t know. And it wasn’t like I wanted to take her, throw her in my car and screw her right there and then, I just wanted to… look at her… I guess.
She shook her hair, curly blonde shoulder length hair now freed from the helmet, and I just stared. It was like a television ad for shampoo or something. She then smiled at me and I melted. I felt someone grabbing my hand and shaking it, vaguely hearing a voice, but I was still transfixed on hair, deep, dark green eyes, supple, cherry red lips, luminescent white teeth and smooth, flawless skin. Again reality came swimming back and the lucidity in the world hit me – I now couldn’t just hear a voice, I could understand it – “…to meet someone else on the road. Great car, man! Hey, are you also heading to Bloem? Oh, I’m Jayson by the way, with a ‘Y’. J-a-y-s-o-n. And that’s Marie, my girlfriend.” It was the voice of a tall, handsome guy, maybe half to a quarter of a foot taller than me and with mousey brown hair with blonde tips, the look of peroxided hair which has almost grown out. He was still holding my hand and I could feel the moisture from his recently removed glove between my fingers.
I collected my thoughts but could still not take my eyes of Marie, no matter how hard I tried. “Hey, I’m Sam. And yip, heading for Bloemfontein too!” I said with perhaps too much enthusiasm. Marie reached out her hand as Jayson let go of mine – I reached for hers, not desperate to touch her, but wanting too. I then remembered my hand – shit, it would be sopping wet, but not from me, from Jayson – she would think that I was a chronic sweater. What a loser… And the rain was too slight to blame for a sodden hand. All this happened in a split second, and before I knew it, I had ducked out of the hand shake and was hugging her. She smelt great, even though she smelt a bit of sweat. I didn’t linger too long, and for good measure, I turned around and hugged Jayson too. “I haven’t seen anyone on the road in days,” I said, hoping that that would explain the hugs.
Marie and Jayson, both 22, are Durban born and bred, but both now lived in Randburg. They had been stuck in a couple of places for the last few months – Cresta Shopping Centre ended much the same as Johan and Owen’s stay at Eastgate and they eventually left there because the outside world seemed a much safer bet. After that they spent a month in a camper van until they crashed it trying to escape from the infected and then they spent a couple of weeks underground in the basement car park of an office block off the William Nicol off ramp with seven other people. “We eventually had to get out of there because we were going mad – we needed to see the sun!” sang Marie. “Luckily for us, when we decided to leave, the first thing that we saw when we ‘emerged’, other than damn bright sun,” laughed Jayson, “Was a motor bike dealer across the road. Marie used to do motocross as a child, so we thought, hey man, why not?”
We shared some food and a cold drink as we chatted, sheltered from the rain in the Audi. I was still obsessed with Marie and laughed too loud at her jokes and held her gaze for too long when our eyes met. But she was gracious throughout and I could tell that she was used to reluctantly being the centre of attention. Jayson also seemed okay with it, but, I guess he had to be used to it by now. I don’t mean to brag – well, actually I do – but a lot of men would stare at Lil when we were out, even if we were together and holding hands or were arm in arm, they would still stare. At first it pissed me off and I wanted to confront them or just tell them to stop staring, but after a while, I realised that I was the lucky one – she was in my arms and would be in my bed that night.