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

Entry 22

The surprising thing was, though I was in shock, I slept throughout the night. I guess because I knew Dad was there. It was a deep sleep, and I dreamt of Mom and Vani. I still dream about them, every night.

The next day, Dad was reluctant to tell me what had happened.

"I need to know. How am I supposed to go on otherwise, not knowing?" He finally relented.

That day, after he had left me at home, he made his way to the motorway. From our house, it takes about fifteen minutes to Kovil Tookay, which is to the south of Rose Belle. Our part of the country is, well was, not a heavily populated area, I suppose it's even less populated now. There's never any traffic of the likes found in the Central Plateau or Port Louis pre-outbreak. But that night the motorway was clogged on both sides, as I would see later. People were trying to head to the airport and others were trying to go the other way. Dad found himself hardly moving. He kept trying to call Mom but there was no answer. He decided to find another way. He pulled off the highway into the sugar cane fields, took a dirt road, and drove south for as long as he could. A lot of people had had the same idea; at some point the dirt road was full of cars and people. He stopped and waited. People had packed all manner of things into their cars, some were even bringing furniture. As he waited for a break in the traffic he heard the screaming, the Rose Belle hospital which had been quarantined wasn't far off.

"They were coming from the hospital and from within the cars themselves. People were carrying infected family members with them. They were attacking everyone. I saw two of them drag a guy halfway out of his car; they didn't wait until he was completely out of his car. They ate him right there."

Leaving the road, Dad drove the truck straight into the sugar cane, he kept driving and only stopped because it was difficult for him to continue. He found a place to park the truck, so he could easily find it. Taking his torch—he always had one in the pickup—he started to walk. It was dark and raining, he had no choice but to cross the highway again. He found a footbridge, and knowing Mauritians never use footbridges, he used it to get across. He had to be careful getting there because the living dead were everywhere, and it was difficult to tell the living from the dead in the dark and rain. On the footbridge, he had a good view of the highway. The traffic went all the way towards Plaine Magnien where the airport was, and the opposite way, heading to Curepipe, although it was less, it was still backed up. The living dead were everywhere, like ants. Dad kept going. He made his way into the sugar cane fields on the other side of the highway, but there seemed to be more of them, and they were coming from the direction of Kovil Tookay. At one point, he hid in a ditch as they passed him. He saw them sniff the air when they were close to him.

"The same way a dog or cat sniffs the air. One of them came close to where I was in the ditch but didn't find me."

Dad kept pushing on, running and walking, sometimes on all fours to avoid being seen or detected. It didn't always work. Whilst he was running in the cane fields, he ran straight into one of the living dead. Ran smack into him.

"I thought I had run into another person. When I turned on the flashlight, it came straight for me. My whole life, I've never been in a fight and now I'm fighting for my life. I shoved it and turned to run but I tripped and fell on my back. It was on top of me and it bit my jacket. Something came over me, all I could think about was you, your mom and your sister, and this thing, this monster, was not going to stop me. I managed to hold him with one hand and with the other hand I hit him with the flashlight. In the light, I saw he was young, just a boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen," Dad said. "I had read somewhere police officers use their torches to beat suspects, let me tell you, it worked. I must have hit him four or five times. He stopped moving. But the struggle and the commotion had attracted more of them. I got up and started running. I don't know if I killed him or not. He was just a kid. I suppose you can't kill what's already dead."