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

Entry 32

Today Pedro left for Mali. A large mass of the living dead has been spotted in the Sahara, at least four to five million according to the reconnaissance teams. How do you eradicate that many? The Global Council, in all its wisdom, has decided the best thing to do is to monitor the movement of the swarm and unless they become a threat, to leave them alone. Can you even call it a swarm when it is that big? The Global Council defines any grouping of more than 10,000 a swarm. Five million is a lot more than 10,000. The plan is to only eradicate those that move towards new settlements. The Sahara is the perfect environment for the living dead: dry, no rain, no big bodies of water or rivers. Pedro says Reconnaissance believes they haven't had much to eat so they do not have the energy and in the heat of the desert there's only so much the living dead can do. I'm still worried about Pedro going there. How can I not be? Is he going to be okay? If something should happen and he must eject from his aircraft, there isn't much they can do to rescue him. I'm trying not to think about it. Fergie says when I am in a situation in which I don't have any control I should try not to fret or worry. It doesn't help. I should instead try to occupy my mind with other things. I'm going to keep writing.

As Murali got better the rest of us got sick. The weather took a turn for the worse, and before we knew it, a lot of us were sick with the flu. The only shelter we had was the tool shed which wasn't big enough for all of us. We tried setting up a tent of sorts, but it didn't do much. The men spent their nights in the vehicles, which were not comfortable. What we ended up doing was rotating turns in the hut. Well, the adults did that. They let us kids stay in the hut at night. It was obvious we couldn't stay there any longer. We needed better shelter. Satish suggested we check if the farm or the Marais house had been cleared. They all seemed to agree on it, so we split into two groups. Dad and I along with Milou were to check our farmhouse. Satish and Dave were to check the Marais house. Stephan was going to do a bit of reconnaissance on his own and check the other farm houses in the area. With his motorcycle he was faster and more mobile than we were.

We took a dirt road off the main road. It was going to take us as close to the houses as possible. At one point, we found the dirt road blocked with two broken down sugar cane trucks. Whoever had left them there had taken off with the keys and getting around them was not possible. The adults debated whether we should go back, but Dad said there was a vantage point from where we'd be able to see the general area. It wasn't too far from where we were. However, there was a catch; cutting off the road to the vantage point was a ravine with a river running through it. The vantage point was on the other side of the ravine, which meant we had to climb.

We hadn't seen any living dead on our way there, and there weren't any in the ravine, but we were on the lookout just in case. We had to first go down our side of the ravine, then cross the river. It was slippery, I hung on to vines and Dad as I went down. As for the river, it was shallow enough for us to cross. Dad and Satish even found freshwater shrimps. Someone mentioned it might be worth a trip back to get some. Once across, we started up the other side of the valley, a tough climb. I slipped a few times and so did the adults. Dad led the way. He knew this area better than anyone. We finally made our way to the crest of the valley. I pulled out the binoculars and passed them to Dad who was next to me. I didn't need them. The living dead were still there and there seemed to be more. Dave signalled for us to go back. The area was off limits. My left thigh had been resting on a branch, when I moved it did a kind of cracking sound. Although the closest living dead was at least a hundred meters away, its head snapped towards our direction and it watched the spot where we were.

"Nobody moves," Dad whispered. He didn't have to say it. We stayed put until it lost interest. Then we moved away, climbing down as slowly as we could. It was scary.