E Virus: The Diary of a Modern Day Girl (The Beginning of the End) (4 page)

It looked as if we were living on one of the roughest council estates of Wythenshawe. Not a high end apartment building on the outskirts of Wilmslow.

I looked into the distance, past the abandoned shopping trolleys and path of destruction.

There, stood on the corner, staring into the road, was a young girl. She was dressed in her pyjamas and holding what looked like a fluffy toy rabbit. She was swaying from side to side as if with the wind. She seemed completely mesmerised with the road she was fixating on.

The more I stared at her the more I recognised her. She lived on one of the new build houses to the left of our apartment. I had never spoken to her but had often seen her in the summer playing with her friends and her other siblings.

She was a plump short girl and I had no doubts in my mind that the poor girl had downs syndrome. She stood out to me, as she would always be running a few paces behind the others. Once or twice I'd seen and heard arguments break out between her friends, if and when one of them had said something horrible to her. They were irritating and loud at times. But they seemed a good bunch of kids.

I couldn't take my eyes of her, she didn't look injured, but at the same time something was not right about her at all. She was usually a smiley, happy child with rosy cheeks. Now, she looked very pale and had an eerie vacant expression as she stared at, well nothing. I knew she had not seen me and was not facing in my direction.

All of a sudden she dropped what she was holding, she turned and walked off slo
wly into the distance. As she wandered away, I noticed her right foot was bent out of place. It looked like a bone was protruding through her ankle. This didn't seem to faze her at all; it just seemed to slow her down slightly, as she shuffled with each step.

My eyes drew back to the fluffy toy rabbit she discarded. Only it wasn't a toy rabbit, judging from the blood and bones sticking out at all angles, it was without a doubt real. And dead.

The blood on the rabbit’s fur had darkened as and the bones were a bright white, they had been licked completely clean. It was obviously once a sweet childhood pet. She must have found it in one of the gardens, if not her own.

I turned away from the window, feeling slightly sick. I didn't tell anyone else about the girl I had seen, I didn't want anyone to panic, we needed to figure out a plan and keep ourselves alive, that was the main concern.

As soon as everyone was awake, I gathered them in the living room. We discussed our options as it became clear, none of us were in a rush to leave the apartment in the immediate future.

This being said we still needed a plan. Nothing was certain anymore. The undead weren't our only problem. Right now we had internet, we had TV and we had electricity, gas and water. For how long, none of us knew.

As a first point of call, we left Duckface and Andy to check the food supplies. We had collectively decided that it was best to use up the fresh food first, as this had the shortest shelf life. We would then move onto the frozen food, just in case we lost power and the freezer defrosted itself.

Whilst they got to work on making an inventory of the entire food contents, we started filling up bottles, containers, glasses, anything we could find with water. Just in case our water supply got shut off, or worse, contaminated. We even filled the sinks and bath just so we had as much water as possible.

We then went on the hunt for medical supplies. We had an abundance of hay fever tablets, a couple of boxes of Paracetamol, Imodium and travel sickness tablets. We had half a box of Disney Princess Plasters and a digital thermometer. We had no antibiotics and no substantial first aid kit. All in all, we were not doing well on the medical front.

“Babe, you still have those ridiculous princess plasters?” Nick asked me when he found them.

“Yep, why wouldn’t I? There pink and pretty and have princesses on them!” I replied.

“Ok, whatever makes you happy” he rolled his eyes. “bloody princess plasters” he muttered.

“What was that?” I asked

“Love you” he replied.

“Thought so” I shouted to him as I crossed the room.

Once we had all the information together we figured we had about 3 weeks’ worth of food and water, as long as we rationed well. Our medical supplies needed work, but there was nothing we could do about that now.

“So what do we do when we’ve got no more food left?” Duckface asked.

“I have no idea” I shrugged.

“We’ll figure it out when it comes to it. None of us really know what’s going on out there. Who knows it might die down in a few days” Said Andy, optimistic as ever.

“That might be the case, but I suggest we prepare for the worst. Just to be on the safe side” Nick said, thinking more realistically.

We needed to know as much as possible about what we were facing. So we switched on the TV, and were speechless as we took in the carnage unravelling before our eyes. Fire-fighters were running around trying to put out burning buildings, whilst people ran screaming in every direction. Groups of the infected could be seen chowing down on innocent passers-by. Abandoned police cars and ambulances were left in the road; some had been left after crashing into other cars and telephone poles. It was complete bedlam.

"This video footage was taken last night, in the city centre of Manchester. The emergency services have been unable to contain the outbreak, the current death toll for Manchester has now reached over 100,000 in the last 48 hours" came the voice from the newscaster.

"The government has urged all citizens to stay indoors, do not open the door for anyone, I repeat, do not open the door for anyone"

The screen jumped back to the scenes we had just witness, it was a repeat broadcast.

We sat there for a few minutes in complete silence. All the hairs on my arm stood up and I couldn’t help but shiver.

"Is this really happening?" I finally broke the silence.

"I believe so" Andy solemnly replied. "I suggest we do as they say. We're safe here, we’re certainly not going to let anyone else in, and there’s not a chance I'm going out there" his previous optimism fading out.

"We need to find out more about this virus, I don't know what's caused this, but I am not going to end up like those things walking around out there" Nick added.

From out of nowhere, Duckface shrieked "Oh my god no, I can’t believe it, Jane’s dead!"

We all turned to her, "how the hell do you know that?" I asked. She looked up from her phone. "It's on Facebook" she exclaimed. "Sophie has just posted this, look"

The post read like this:

Idk what's going on here, but I've just been attacked by some weirdo on my way home, I'm fine but Jane got hurt. He bit her in the neck and she fell. There was blood everywhere and she didn't make it. Someone please help wtf do I do?!

I scrolled down and her newsfeed was filled with posts asking for help, and RIP messages for the fallen and infected friends and family members.

I handed back her phone. I couldn't believe what was going on, and how far this had spread in such a short time.

My mind went back to the factory floor. The sight of the poor, old caretaker John being devoured by my ex colleague Diane. It was horrific, and it was going on all around us. I thought back to the way Diane looked at the window in the office. She had no emotion, just a vacant, blank expression as she tried to smash her way through the glass.

The sound of a camera shutter brought me back from my daydream. I looked towards the sound. Despite all the chaos and misery going on all around us, Duckface was sat on the end of our sofa, holding the phone up whilst tilting her head, her lips puckered. I couldn’t believe it, she was taking a selfie!

I couldn't bite my tongue anymore. "What the hell are you doing you vain, inconsiderate bitch!" I screamed at her. "People are dying all around us, and all you can do is take pictures of yourself. You don’t give a shit about anyone else. That’s it, either get your head of your arse or get the fuck out of my house.”

She just glared at me, without saying a word she got up and stormed into the guest room.

I wasn’t sorry. She was in dire need of a reality check. No one got up to follow her out, even Andy stayed with us. He looked at me apologetically.

“Right, we need to figure out what we’re going to do. We can’t stay here forever, eventually we’re going to run out of food. I’m already starting to go stir crazy trapped in here”

Nick and Andy nodded. We tossed ideas back and forth. “As long as we have electricity, I think we need to make the most of it. We don’t know how long it’s going to last.” 

I agreed with Nick. We grabbed every single electronic device we could. Phones. Laptops, Tablets, everything that could be charged got plugged in. We decided to keep all devices charging at all times, just in case.

I spent the rest of that day cooking all the fresh and frozen food, freezing what I could, just in case we lost power.

We spent the next 3 days after that, making our way through our entire film collection, just to keep ourselves occupied. In this time Duckface and I never spoke a word to each other. Quite frankly, I preferred it that way.

The screams from the outside world that could be heard, were less constant. Nights became more peaceful as the noise died down. Still we kept the curtains closed. No one
ever looked out, as far as we were all concerned we did not want to see, hear or smell the outside world. We stayed quiet and kept to ourselves, we only found out what was happening through the news, which was now broadcast on every channel.

On the fourth day, we finally lost power and water. It wasn’t a great surprise; we already had T light candles placed in various rooms of the apartment. We were as prepared as we could be, given the circumstances. 

We unplugged all our phones and switched them off. No point in wasting the battery until we absolutely had to.

Things were starting to get difficult for us all. We no longer knew what was happening in the outside world. There was no sign of rescue. We spent our days waiting, for what
? we didn’t quite know.

Duckface finally broke the silence between us. “There’s something I need to show you” she whispered “I’ve been checking up on Facebook, to find out what’s going on. People have been posting different theories about what’s happening.
Don’t be mad, but I made a group”

“Wha
t do you mean you’ve made a group, what for?” I asked.

“Well, our family and friend
s are out there. I made the group so we could all keep in contact with each other. Don’t worry I haven’t told anyone we’re here.” She carried on “there might be a safe place somewhere, somewhere we can go nearby”

This was the first time I had ever heard her talk l
ike that. Making a Facebook group seemed like an odd thing to do, but at least she was trying to help. I didn’t think she had it in her.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked

“When the electricity went off I knew I couldn’t carry it on, on my own. I know we need to save our battery power just in case. But there’s still people online.”

She handed me her phone. I opened the page. She had named it ‘E Virus Support Group’.

I couldn’t help but laugh. It sounded like some type of AA meeting for alcoholics, drug users and people with strange addictions.

I looked down the page. She already had 2,000
members. This was good, it meant other people were alive and safe.

People were posting all
sorts to the group. Mostly were cries for help. A few were sharing their experiences; a few had mentioned being bitten or injured.

I had to hand it to her, it was a good idea. We needed to keep track of what was going on in some way. This seemed like our only option.

We decided to monitor it once a day. That way we weren’t constantly checking it and could reserve power. It was now our only link with the outside world.