Valli : Personal Journal of Valli Pillay, a Living Dead Pandemic Survivor

Entry 19

Fergie is trying something new. He wants us, his patients, to sit in a circle and talk about whatever we want regarding our past. I'm not ready to talk and I told the group. Fergie says it's okay. He says I can listen if the others don't mind, and they didn't.

The first person to talk was this guy called Samuel from Kenya, who does training with the Forward Reconnaissance teams. In his before life, as he calls it, he was an officer in the Kenyan Army, a sniper.

He told us when the outbreak came to Kenya he had been with his wife and kids at his clan's village in a remote area of the country. They managed to weather out the whole thing. When he said that, I thought to myself what is he doing in our group? What problems could he be having? His family survived!

Samuel put his training to use when we started taking control again. He felt he had to give something back as his family survived. He told us he had eradicated thousands of living dead. The Global Council says you can't kill what is already dead, so "eradicate" is the official term.

"So many, so many. They say I am among the snipers with the most kills. I'm sorry, eradications," Samuel said. "To be honest, I don't want that title."

It was all starting to get to him. He couldn't sleep properly. He just saw the faces of the living dead before the bullet found its mark. He knew they were already dead, but it still got to him, which is why he asked to be transferred to the training unit, but he still had to go out. Whether he liked it or not, he had to do it.

"I do it for my children."

Someone got upset at him. I forget who it was. I had my head down when they were talking. I understood Samuel. I had eradicated so many of the living dead myself, but there is always the thought at the back of my head: What if they had some humanity somewhere in them? The Global Council has done plenty of tests which show it is highly unlikely. What if, though?

The person who got upset at Samuel told him, "At least you have your family with you." We all agreed with that.

Fergie suggested we go out to the shooting range to let off some steam. Samuel set it up for us. We all went two days ago. It helped, but afterwards I was back to square one.