The Infected Read online

  4: Dead Trees and Traffic Islands – The Manic Street Preachers – Well I could have chosen anything by them really, and I do have each and every one of their albums, but the title of this B-side of theirs grabbed me.

  5: Long Road to Ruin – The Foo Fighters – Hopefully note a self fulfilling prophecy this one…

  6: Geezers Need Excitement – The Streets – Yes, geezers certainly do need excitement – driving alone in and Audi R8 with hungry zombies all around excitement enough for you Mike Skinner?

  7: Take the Long Road and Walk It – The Music – Yes, I am doing the first thing, but no, definitely not the second. (I used to be able to play the intro to this song on the guitar. Yes, I know that I am awesome).

  8: Street Fighting Man – Oasis – Well, the version I have on my iPod is done by the brothers Gallagher, but I think that the original was actually done by the Rolling Stones. I can only hope that I don’t have to do any fighting in the streets to survive.

  9: Road Trippin’ – Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Pretty self explanatory I would assume.

  10: Drive – R.E.M./The Gaslight Anthem – Two great rock songs by two great American rock bands. I like them both so I put them both in.

  11: Trippin’ Down the Freeway – Weezer – What a great, rollicking, arm pumping rock song. Oh, and definitely apt for this scenario.

  12: Go Outside and Drive – Blues Traveller – Okay, if you insist, I will.

  13: Street Spirit (Fade Out) – Radiohead – Beautiful song – quite fitting and will make for great listening on an open road in the dark.

  14: Road Rage – Catatonia – A pure gem of Welsh pop. I laughed when I came across this one – sounds quite appropriate given the fact that the infected will be trying anything to get to me while I am out there.

  15: City Rain, City Streets – Ryan Adams – Well it’s all due to the rain that I will be able to go out on the streets, but I seriously hope that the rain is not just confined to the city – a countrywide thundershower would suite me just fine, thank you.

  16: Road To Nowhere – The Talking Heads – Oh, it better not be!

  17: Suicide Drive – The Seahorses – What my mother thinks this little adventure of mine will be…

  So I have some interesting listening for that first spell of my trip! I think I eventually did fall asleep, but for twenty minutes, if that. I have just been too full of nerves, excitement, apprehension, tears – too many of them – anticipation… it’s been like going on your first date, having your first ever day of school, waiting for your final matric results, having that moment just prior to and just post losing your virginity and bungee jumping all at the same time. For a whole day.

  But I have still managed to periodically check the street outside my kitchen window and I have not seen any more of the infected from that vantage point. I even took a walk around the complex earlier – with my guns – and had a look from other angles into the street – still, I saw nothing. I took a chance and went up to the gate of the complex and had a look around – I still couldn’t see any of the infected and the rain was still falling. This is it.

  Oh crap, almost forgot to let you know what Lil had to say earlier. Here are our mails:

  From: Sam Ward

  Sent: 13 September 2011 12:03pm

  To: Lourens Stadler

  Subject: Its time!

  Hi gorgeous – it’s me. And I have some good news (scary but good!) I’ll be leaving for Bloem today/tonight!!! I’ll be heading closer to you, isn’t that cool? I can’t wait to see you my girl! Soon, soon, soon!

  From: Lourens Stadler

  Sent: 13 September 2011 1:43pm

  To: Sam Ward

  Subject: Re: Its time!

  YAY!!!!!!!! I CANNOT WAIT TO PUT MY ARMS AROUND YOU SAMMIE!!!!! Oops, sorry about the caps – I can’t help myself! But… that’s also frightening baby – you’ll be all alone with… them. Please promise me that you will be careful Sammie? I know you will be, but hey, please, just for me, humour me and be super vigilant and super careful? Oh, and with that fancy new car that you ‘inherited’, make sure that you get here super fast! And I say ‘here’ because we are, according to Derek’s GPS, just fifty kilometres away (well fifty three to be exact, but who’s counting?) As we have got closer things have got easier, the roads clearer and less scattered with cars, so I am sure that we’ll be there tomorrow – I can’t wait (well, I have to – everyone else is sleeping now and we want to make our ‘grand entrance’ early in the morning!)

  Okay baby, I better go and get some sleep – tomorrow should, if things go to plan for us, be a big, BIG day! Again honey – I beseech you with all my heart (whatever that means, but I do remember hearing it in a movie so I hope I have the context right…) to be safe. I will see you soon my love.

  Adore you.

  Lil

  From: Sam Ward

  Sent: 13 September 2011 2:22pm

  To: Lourens Stadler

  Subject: Re: Re: Its time!

  Believe me my love, I am not taking this lightly – I will ‘seech’ you (if that makes any sense) and ‘seech’ your heart and be very, very, very, very, VERY careful. I promise.

  I can’t believe that you are so close to getting there – please let me know when you actually arrive and… I hope that I am not being pessimistic here, please let me know if it is really there. I won’t change my plans – there is not a chance of that because you will be there! But it would be nice to know that it’s all not in vain.

  Be safe on the last bit of your journey babe and I will see you there!

  Can’t wait to… you know what!

  Love you - Sam

  So there you have it – they are basically there in Bloemfontein. And I am basically on my way out of here. People, please wish me luck and please have me in your thoughts and prayers. I will keep you updated as often as possible, and hopefully I will be able to confirm this whole Bloemfontein ‘safe house’ thing for all of you out there.

  Man, I am shaking like a leaf. A leaf with flippin’ Parkinsons. On a vibrating chair. Okay, enough, I need to poo. Sorry for the over share, but, you know, I feel pretty close to you after all of this. Be safe, take care of yourself and we’ll catch up while I am on the road.

  Shalom, totsiens, adios, bye.

  Sam

  11:57pm, September 13

  Oh. P.S. Lil, I absolutely adore you my love! I will, yes, I WILL definitely, without a shadow of a doubt see you soon.

  Oh, and this is probably not the most romantic place and time to do this, but when I see you next, will you please do me the utmost pleasure of marrying me? Being apart from you for so long has just confirmed to me how much I love you and need you. Please be mine.

  Sam

  6:31am, September 17

  Hi. I am okay. In actual fact, I am really good. I have been on the road now for about three and a half days, and although it has been pretty tough going, it’s an adventure of note and one that I am relishing.

  There is plenty to tell you of my first few days out on the road (I am just outside of Vereeniging by the way, the Bloem side, that is) but before I get to that, here’s some exciting news from Lil – very interesting too as it was the last email that I got from her…

  From: Lourens Stadler

  Sent: 14 September 2011 8:21am

  To: Sam Ward

  Subject: OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES, YES, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Of course I will marry you Sam Ward, a million times over!!! WOW – I was seriously not expecting that – it will make seeing you again so much sweeter!

  I’ve had to take a breather and a quick walk out in the fresh air just to get over all the excitement! Thank you my baby – I will remember this day forever!

  Well Sammie, that last statement of mine is for two reasons (but mostly because of you, I promise!), because we are here! Well, we are almost there. We drove into the deserted streets of Bloemfontein about two hours ago and decided to stop for a cold beer (Derek’s last couple) and a final
breakfast out here in the ‘dangerous’ world! But my Sammie, we know that the place exists, well, at least we think that the place is real… from about five kilometres outside of the city there were crude signs which make us think that we are on the right track – arrows in rocks alongside the road, spray painted messages on the street – “only 2 more km”, “safety & food”, “come”, then a hastily painted one on a stained bed sheet draped between a stop sign and a street light which read “sirvivors – this way” (that’s their spelling, not mine, by the way). Now this whole ‘episode’ has seen the pessimist drowning the optimist in all of us, but we cannot see these unhumans, who fight at each other just to get a sniff of us, planning some elaborate hoax like this. They just aren’t capable of it baby.

  So we are tying up whatever loose ends need tying up and getting ready to put this whole long, elongated and exhausting road trip behind us and a) have a good bath/shower (I really do not care which, I just need to seriously clean myself with good water pressure and some decent soap and shampoo) b) have a good sleep without worrying about who or what is maybe creeping up on us and c) get out of this bloody bus and not travel for a day!

  But I better go Sammie – sorry to cut this short – but everybody is pretty excited to get going. Derek actually did a quick scout ahead half an hour or so ago and just came to tell me now that it looks like the whole ‘down town’ area of the city is walled off. Its deserted he says, but he thought that he could see a gate or an entrance through his binoculars – this seems to be the cause for all the excitement around our ‘camp.’

  Okay. They are getting agitated now! I better go my future hubbie! Love you so deeply it hurts – keep me updated and I’ll email you once we’re inside.

  Love you Sammie!

  Lil

  So that’s the last time I heard from her… and when I try email her it bounces back… but I am not too worried though as they hadn’t seen any of the infected for a while and were so close to safety. I just cannot wait to get there and see for myself. And see her, my new fiancé! I can’t even imagine what that first meeting after so long is going to be like. I may even shed a tear (hehehe – actually, I know that I will be crying like a big baby!)

  Okay, before this lump in my throat gets too big, let me update you on what has been happening since I last wrote. And be warned – I have a fully charged battery so this may take a while…

  I left just after 12:15am on Monday morning. I locked my door and said a quick goodbye to my townhouse – she had served me well over the years and I wanted to thank her as I had a feeling that I may never see her again, even if I wasn’t killed by one of the infected. I went down the stairs towards my glistening car with a funny feeling of nauseating excitement and profound sadness. But I’d left the keys inside. So I went back up, did a final check (very thorough this time), and went back down to the car. There was no turning back now, unless if I wanted to turn back and go up the stairs again. But I didn’t.

  I started the car and drove to the exit of the complex, this time knowing what to expect from the beast under the bonnet. I paused again at the gate, trying not to think of what may have been waiting for me outside, and pressed the gate remote. The gate slid open slowly as the rain continued and drops of water raced down the windscreen between the intermittent swipes of the wipers. This was, seriously, going to be an adventure.

  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 al
arm 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?