Artifact 2954: Mariane's letter

Note found in Possessions of Intruder (Ref No: 237) , Intruder Shot on attempt to enter through gap in south perimeter of Zone 16, No other ID present, note translated from original.

---

I am writing this letter in the hope that someone somewhere hears my story should i not live. My name is Mariane Prideux. I am a 23 year old office worker from Cherbourg and right now, I feel like I am the last human on the planet. Perhaps I am.

It’s like I’ve been walking in circles for weeks now, just staying mobile from any outbreaks of infection. They seem to be like wildfires so perhaps if they run out of fuel they will die out I can finally settle back down but there is always me, I can burn with the rest of them.

When this began I had just taken a week off to relax, business has been slow so I stayed at home, or at my parents. When mother said that Marc had fallen ill I said I would look after him, he’d just returned from a school trip to Paris and many of them had seemed to get some sort of bug. Stressing Caution the doctor made sure I limited contact with him. I used to prepare what I was saying before hand to maximise the amount of support I could give him. Then Mother fell ill and eventually Papa fell ill with the same illness. I carried on looking after all of them, feeling so helpless, there was no cure, and all these painkillers and medicines were like putting a plaster over a gaping wound.

Every trip out to the shops or into the town would just seem worse and worse with less people on the streets, the occasional looting of smaller shops. Soon the government introduced a curfew and the few that remained like me had to be delivered food by the army. However I had plenty, between my families dwindling appetite and some strange sense of camaraderie between shops and customers I’d built up a stockpile, I think I might need it.

The following week Marc died, I foolishly told the army who came and took his body. So I grieved on my own, Mother and father were too far gone to hear me and I dared not go near them anyway. When they passed away the army dragged me from my house. I wasn’t fighting I didn’t resist; I just didn’t know what to do. They dragged me into a car and drove off, I was the only survivor on our street, or the next, or the next. Miraculously Madame DuPont had survived, an elderly woman of 76. Sometimes life really surprises you.

I overheard the two soldiers in the front, one had forgotten to turn off the radio speaker and through our truck was heard “243 proceed to processing centre for incineration and execution.” Not knowing what this meant I bolted for the back of the truck, jumping over the tailboard and down the street, they called me back but didn’t persue. I climbed a garden fence and hid there until I was gone. I returned to my home to stay there but soon soldiers had returned, so I ran.

I must have carried on running for hours it was night before I reached the forest where I set up camp and slept. Putting my faith in my cover and camouflage and hoping that no one would find me. I survived and kept moving, heading no where in particular. I found towns full of the dead some buried in mass graves some killed in stampedes at train stations or of hypothermia in their cars on the motorways. Occasionally I’d loot a shop for supplies, saying a prayer for forgiveness every time. I stayed away from the cities, from the soldiers; I wandered the farms and villages.

I’ve been like that for weeks now and its just getter harder to survive, less food and roving bands of bandits, trying to eek out their own existence. So here I am, on the beach with a boat, maybe the Channel Islands haven’t been infected, and maybe England is in better shape, anything is better than this surely. Nothing left but France’s corpse riddled with Maggots of people it once sheltered.
Wish me luck