Transcript of note found in train carriage, South west Devon mainline
Welcome to my humble abode.
You’re welcome to it.
With a reasonable amount of time remaining and a high sense of self importance I write this statement.
When we realised what was going on, like most people who were still capable of doing so we left the city, thinking for no real reason that the countryside would better.. Having No car we left on foot, through gardens and along roadsides we travelled, avoiding the main transit ways for safety, camping in houses that were safe, or at least seemed safe, but that’s another story. This took some time, avoiding riots and blockades it took a few days. By the time we got out of the city it had started to go quiet. At one point, out of curiosity we wandered towards the motorway.
Cars as far as the eye could see, all silent, we could see figures inside them silent and some figures wandering around them, we couldn’t see what they were doing, we just felt a great sense of foreboding. I never really knew hat that word meant, only that old writers use this. Now I know what they meant, but I doubt they saw anything like this.
So, living off cold tins of stuff we grabbed from a seemingly abandoned CO-OP we struck out across the countryside. Oh, me and Kate, and I’m Paul. That’s the problem with typewriters, can’t go back and edit. I never thought I’d miss Microsoft word.
A week of living on tins of pineapple chunks and cold beans didn’t seem too appealing but neither of us knew which berries were safe and which might give us the shits. I’ve since mused on how separated from nature we all were but at the time I was just hungry so we eventually started eating them, trial and error. I tried to further supplement this by catching pigeons, with no luck.
So berries in bag, beard sprouting on face we reached a railway line, empty. We decided to follow it; maybe it would take us to a town, maybe not. We had no plan, we were just carrying on, tired, unable to sleep for noises and scratches around us at night. We followed the line, I’d like to tell you, invisible reader about the incident with the old lady and the ticket office, but I can feel time slipping away from me.
On an empty stretch of track, overlooking the coast stopped a train, some small two carriage commuter jobby. We approached it cautiously, only to be greeted by a man whose beard was probably enormous even before the death of the electric razor and running water. His name was Arthur and unsurprisingly, he was a railway driver. As we’d later find out he’d hijacked this train, departing without passengers save for his wife Molly and their children. After being checked for cleanliness and signs of infection we were allowed in on condition we shared our food and helped hunt. As it happened John could hunt pigeons, so we feasted on meat that night with good company and nervous, if hopeful, smiles.
Arthur was the first to go. Not die, not definitely, but probably. He went on a reccy on his own. Stupid bastard. Didn’t see him for a few days, but Molly started worrying within two minutes. When we woke up the following morning we found John, their eldest had gone to try and find him. Also stupid, albeit 14 years, so ill forgive him.
Molly and Suzy, her daughter found him that afternoon, he’d managed half a mile before slipping down a hill, landed on his neck. Lived long enough to say goodbye to his mum.
Molly went missing a week later. I wonder if something happened to her, but I suspect she did something herself. I guess I’ll never know. Suzy never spoke after that.
Suzy lived with us in our striped out train, with its crude metal fireplace, beds made of chairs adorned with some awful pattern of the type only found on bus and train seats. Me, Kate and our silent adopted daughter
So we lived, roughly off the land, and the sea. Till one day, inexplicably, Kate fell ill with an infection; I don’t know whether it was from bad food, or finally a poisonous kind of berry. If only we knew, I miss Waterstones too. So we watched her slowly fade away, food didn’t last very long, we gave her a carriage to herself, which I visited, against her better judgment but me and Suzy survived that.
Suzy was mute, but still functional, for a 9 year old who’d see more than she should of the world’s horrors. Till one day she left, without a word, and even if she spoke, I didn’t hear it.
So I stayed here, on my own, slowly starving. A modern man can’t survive on his own wits. When I fell ill I was quite glad, I can feel life fall away from me, and each button on this type writer feels so heavy to press.
Can’t be too bad though, I managed to write all this bollocks.
I don’t know what it is, it’s not a major illness though and certainly not the big one that’s been killing everyone. At least I survived the big one.
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