The Infected (12 page)

I unscrewed the door handle in super quick time and eased the door open, having one long look back out before I slipped inside with my nail gun at the ready. But then I almost dropped it. I found myself in the middle of… I don’t know… the 80s? A porn film? There was leopard print everywhere – the couches, the carpet, the curtains, the g-string dangling from an oversized lamp in the corner of the lounge. And then, smack bang in the middle of the room, there it was. A stripper’s pole.

I think that they were running a brothel from the flat. Just a few hundred metres from where I slept every night. How weird is that? Apart from the lingerie randomly strewn around the entrance, kitchen and living room (including a latex nurse outfit), the small bar area, including a cocktail table and bar fridge and the amount of condoms and lubrication gel lying around were dead giveaways. Insane. What would I have done if I had known about this before? Would I have gone? Definitely not once I had met Lil. But before that? Maybe. But maybe not, I mean I had only been to a strip club once, and that was for a mate’s bachelors evening, and even then it seemed like a sleazy, underground, unpalatable side of life that didn’t quite appeal to me. It’s just odd knowing that, inside my quiet, little, middle class townhouse complex, surrounded by young families with cute toddlers and elderly couples who watered and spoke to their roses and geraniums, was a unit where men lived out their fantasies. Weird.

After coming to terms with what lay before my eyes, I suddenly thought about what I maybe couldn’t see. In my shock I had put the nail gun down on the kitchen counter – on top of a bra which had open areas for the nipples – without even considering that there may have been one or more of the infected still in the apartment. I quickly grabbed it (the nail gun, not the bra) and poked my head into each room, each one out doing the next in terms of cheesiness. The main bedroom had a thick, deep red carpet, the mandatory leopard print bedding and a ceiling made up only of mirrors. The spare room wasn’t too bad, if you ignored all the bondage gear – whips, chains, leather and latex lingerie, handcuffs and the scariest, biggest frikking dildo I have ever seen. But it was the bathroom which got me. I nudged the door open, nail gun at the ready, and noted the furry pink toilet seat cover. Nice. The all black tiles were also different, but I must admit that it did look pretty nice with the sleek chrome taps and towel rails and the rest. But it was the disco ball in the middle of the ceiling that had me in fits of laughter. Very, very weird.

But anyway, I knew that there wouldn’t be too much of use in number 32 for me, unless I was into cross-dressing (which I am not), so I busied myself trying to find the car keys for the R8. I eventually found them, between the cushions of the three-seater leopard print couch (I felt a few other things down there which I seriously do not want to know what they were), helped myself to a few packets of peanuts and raisins – the only food to be found anywhere in the unit, and a stack of AA and AAA batteries, which were, presumably for the monster dildo and the other varieties of sex toys that I found in the spare room. I also grabbed a tube of lube (not for that reason…) ‘cos you never know when you might need it. Honestly.

I had a quick swing around the stripper pole, let myself out and sniggered as I put the handle back on the door. As the proud new owner of a new Audi R8, registration XXG 189 GP, I moved onto the next unit, hoping for better luck. And as it turned out, Number 33 was definitely better, and I left there with my bag bulging. After sifting through the post left haphazardly on the small, scratched oak and glass coffee table in the middle of the sparsely decorated lounge, I came to the conclusion that Jim and Dorothy Deftereos where in financial difficulties – final notices on credit cards and clothing accounts dominated their post, but thankfully this did not stop them from splurging on food. They must have loved their chocolate, because there were three or four of nearly every kind I could think of in the top drawer in the kitchen – you know, the one usually reserved for cutlery. Snickers, Bar One, Tex, Lunch Bar, Inside Story, Kit Kat – they were all there. While I searched the rest of the kitchen I dug into a Flake – I hadn’t had one of those in years.

But it wasn’t just the chocolates that I filled my bag with – there were tons of biscuits, pasta and rice (I can’t cook these on the stove, but I found that leaving it in water in the sun for a few hours actually softens it up enough, and with spices it makes a nice change from the usual food I eat). I actually got so much from number 33 that I had to go back to my place to empty the bags for the rest of my excursion. It was quite a hot day, and doing my foraging at midday got me worrying that I may end up with a bag full of melted chocolate. Hey, that’s got me thinking – maybe I should try find myself an exercise bike as I’m not exactly eating the healthiest. But that may change – but I’ll tell you about that a bit later.

On the way back out, again after making sure that I was alone, I took the opportunity to check out my new ride. Man, what a car! It’s so low, like a crouching leopard, basically touching the road – it’s a sexy thing. And inside it’s so damn sleek, like every single bit of it was designed specifically to fit. I’m sounding a bit like Jeremy Clarkson, aren’t I? Oh well. Maybe he’s gone the way of most of the world and they will be looking for a new Top Gear presenter? But I mean, that gearbox is a thing of beauty (from the Audi website – Managed without a clutch pedal, the R tronic sequential gearbox delivers superior road performance and faster gear shifts. As well as using the automatic mode, gears can be changed via a gearshift specially developed for the Audi R8 and mounted on the centre console or by means of shift paddles on the steering wheel, as is customary in motor racing). That all sounds slightly technical to me but I am sure I’ll get the hang of it. And then there’s the speedometer. It looks like it’s just begging for you to floor it. The integrated GPS is also pretty damn cool – 760km to Bloem – I checked.

I stopped myself just short of starting it and taking it for a spin… I can’t wait. But I left after spending some time in the car just admiring it and slowly made my way to the next unit. From the moment I opened the door of number 34 I knew that something was wrong. I was now on the upper level, basically across from my flat. There was a horrible, pungent smell that made me gag. I turned to leave, but decided that I couldn’t – what if there was something here I would one day desperately need, but wouldn’t know of because of a bad smell? But it wasn’t just a ‘bad’ smell, it was awful, really terrible. I readied my nail gun and went in, my other hand covering my nose.

I expected to find bodies littered everywhere, but all I saw was an immaculately kept unit, polar opposites from mine even though the layout was identical. I slowly lowered my hand from my nose, but yip, it was still there, stronger now and a smell that made my eyes water. Okay, I thought, let me get through this and get out – I’d rather take my chances with the infected than stay in this apartment for any longer than I needed to. The one difference between this unit and mine was that the kitchen had been redone in a nice dark wood – what they had done, and which remedied one of my major complaints about the kitchens, was that it added more cupboard space (why they don’t take kitchen cupboards up all the way to the roof, I don’t know. What are you supposed to do with that tiny bit of space above them?), and they added a pantry cupboard. That’s where I went first, and after sifting through a host of rotten potatoes, gem squashes and a seriously horrible looking watermelon, I was able to find plenty varieties of tinned food and things like jelly, sugar, Milo (yum…), Marmite, peanut butter, cheese spread and, how cool is this, an unopened jar of Nutella! For those who don’t know, Nutella is a chocolate spread, though I don’t know of anyone who has ever put it on bread. The only way to eat it is by dipping your finger into the bottle. I remember going to Shaun’s house every weekend, my best friend in primary school, and digging into his Nutella – my folks considered it “an unnecessary luxury”. Man, I’m going to make that last as long as I can.

Only when I closed the pantry door did I get a whiff of the smell again. What the hell was it? I had to find out before I left. So I scouted the rest of the flat for the smell and for any other bits and pieces which I may have been able to use. The main bedroom was uneventful apart from another gun under the pillow – so now there were two – my neighbours and this one. Mental note…

I did get some painkillers and toothpaste (I was running out) from the bathroom though. Then I got to the spare room. And the smell. Inconspicuously in the far corner of the room, on top of a whitewashed set of drawers, was the offending origin of the smell. It was, horrible, and I still get a whiff every now and again and have to stop myself from throwing up. A hamster cage. Its two previous occupants, now hardly recognisable apart from a few tufts of hair sticking out here and there from the pulp, were the offenders. I threw up. A lot. I’ve gone off Flakes…

Units 35 and 36, both also upstairs, offered up much more of the usual – tinned food, beers, tinned cold drinks, a couple of mixes – lime cordial, Oros, Game powder – batteries, some torches, some music magazines that will help me pass the day, and just as I was about to leave 36, poking out from a small wooden box on the kitchen counter, some seeds. Yay, I hear you say totally unenthusiastically. Seeds. Whoohoo. But listen, they’re seeds for tomatoes. And cucumber. And lettuce. And spring onions. And red peppers. I can grow my own food! How cool is that?

I was so excited (how sad is that?) that I immediately went back to my place and started to create my own veggie garden (can you still call it a veggie garden if all the stuff you are growing is salad stuff?) I measured out half my patio (making sure that I will still have space to enjoy the winter sun, went back downstairs and stole some bricks from the driveway in a spot where the pavers had started lifting, and made a wall three bricks high to block off my ‘garden’. I then went and grabbed one of those shells – those plastic ones used for kid’s sand pits – that I had seen while I was looking for solar panels, emptied the sea sand and found a nice garden bed in one of the units near mine. I filled the shell to as heavy as I could manage, and did five trips until I was happy that I had enough soil. Even though it was just after 4pm and the sun was starting to make its way towards the horizon for the night, I was working up quite a sweat. I got back in, locked up and cleaned up, and set about planting and watering my seeds. I can’t believe it – in a few weeks (or maybe months, I don’t know), I’ll be eating food that I have planted – awesome!

So, all in all, liquidized hamsters apart, it was a good day out. Hope that you had a good day too…

Take care,

Sam W

11:09am, June 16

I have lost contact with Owen and Johan – both their phones are ringing, but no answer. I am starting to feel like I am losing everyone – first Lil… though I still hold out hope. Then Melanie – I still try her number every day but no luck. Then my Dad. Now Johan and Owen. The last time I spoke to them though – it was probably four days ago – things were not sounding good.

Eastgate seemed to have become a microcosm for Apartheid South Africa – they said that the people had split up into groups, along racial lines, and each group was only looking after their own interests. Johan had said that he wasn’t sure where he would have felt safer – outside with the infected or in the food court of Eastgate – the centre point of the shopping centre and smack bang in the middle of all the ‘groups’. There had been a few skirmishes, and, believe it or not, someone had been killed in these ‘gang wars’. According to Owen, the white group had sent three men out to try and get some blankets from somewhere as they had not gotten any when the racial split had occurred. Apparently, and this may be becoming a bit too much like that game you used to play at primary school, broken telephone, they came across an Indian guy who was on his way back from the bathroom… the rest of the story was quite horrific, and even scared Owen and Johan. In Owen’s words, he said that, “This is all becoming a bit too much like Lord of the Flies.”

Looting had been occurring back and forth between the groups, but this cold blooded murder just upped the stakes. Owen and Johan’s group was holed up in the lower level Pick n’ Pay in the east of the centre, and although they had plenty of food – which the other groups were after – they had little in the way of clothes and blankets, access to bathrooms and ways of keeping themselves busy – it was all bound to come to a head. And it did.

The last time I spoke to them – it was Johan, and he had no idea where Owen was – there had been a showdown in the food court. I could hear the utter panic and horrified indignation in Johan’s voice as he told me that something was seriously wrong. His speech was very quick and unfocussed – often he would lose his train of thought or just stop talking abruptly mid-sentence. From what I could understand from all of his jibbering and jabbering, things had come to a head when the Indian group kidnapped and tortured a white lady in retribution for what had happened to one of their own. While the Indian and white groups clashed, the black group, out of necessity, looted and stole from the other two, which, when reported to the two groups in the food court, got them even further agitated and they both turned on the black group. Johan, not afraid to admit it, told me that he had run away and hidden. He said that he could not take the violence anymore – grown men were throwing punches at teenage boys just because they were the wrong colour, and he explained that when he saw two men dragging a woman by her hair, that was enough for him.