Someone finally snapped and told her to shut up.
“Hey, maybe you shouldn’t listen!” shouted bitch-face.
“Yes! That is
exactly
what I want! To not have to listen to your story about fuck off Paul, so shut the fuck up so the hundred people who can hear you don’t have to listen!”
“It’s my birthday so I can do whatever the fuck I like!” shouted bitch-face.
Zen. Need to be a master of Zen.
Aside from that we’re waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, bored of waiting, holy fuck why are we still waiting?
One of the Africans came along with soap. They’re the little packs you find in hotels and each bar is likely to run out after just three washes. We bought one pack which has five small soaps in there and shared them out. We then went in pairs to the Atlantic and washed up. I was able to take my t-shirt off and soap up my entire upper body, face, and hair. Of course, getting enough water in my hands without dissolving the soap was an issue and my hair is now clumpy with dried soap stuck and salt water sticking it all together. I was also able to wash my balls with a handful of water. My arse rash has eased and no longer feels like a sauna down there. I now smell like cheap-hotel, which is quite a step up from broke-backpacking-street-urchin. I could probably sell proper body wash for a hundred quid.
A little while ago one of the restaurateurs came up to the park. We’re all hungry and irritated at waiting. The restaurant guy told us there is a fresh batch of sea food being cooked up on a wood fire grill. Lots of paella. Lots of fish. Rachel, Cristina, Ediz, and I went off to get some. Azeem asked us to bring back some food for himself and Lalla while they mind the tarp. The food is expensive, like €35 for a plate of fish and rice. I haven’t had anything fresh to eat since the church people came and handed out bread rolls, so I won’t complain. What I can complain about is having less than €300 left, so I can’t afford much more. At least here they can fish and grill without needing petrol or electricity.
I had my first espresso in days and it was heavenly. €5.50. I’m pretty sure I could buy a pack of espresso from the supermarket for that price and it would last two weeks. But, for once, sitting on those benches, looking out into the ocean, finally at or near Gibraltar and having a reasonable meal with a hot coffee … it was divine. My headache went away. I didn’t realise I even had one until it lifted. Must have been the caffeine fix all of a sudden. I’m in a much better mood because of it.
There is a chalk board outside with a list of locations and an update on the official count of zombies. People are writing out their names and next of kin on pieces of paper. The manager of this restaurant is taking all of the paper and storing it, promising he will contact those when he can and email them.
There’s a map of Africa there with dots and scribbles from people showing where they all come from or where they travelled to. I must admit, I know fuck all about Africa. I know where Morocco is and that Casablanca is there. I know about the pyramids being in Egypt, I know that Star Wars was filmed in Tunisia, that the Congo is to be avoided, as is Zimbabwe and Somalia, and that South Africa is full of white people right down the bottom. I probably know a couple of other names of countries but they don’t jump at me. Aside from that, I know shit about Africa, which is unfortunate. I know shit about central Asia as well, although I don’t feel so guilty about that. It seems as though we’ve all seen the documentaries of humanitarian crisis in Africa, so we’re supposed to feel guilty about that area, but no one ever speaks of central Asia where all of the ‘stans live. No idea how to feel about those places.
There isn’t much to do here except wait and distract ourselves, so Ediz suggested a game with the African map. We each try to name as many of the countries as possible without looking at the map and see how many we can get. I got nine (and have since forgotten what two of them were). Ediz got to thirty. I don’t think I can even list thirty European countries.
Nope. I got to twenty. Either there aren’t thirty countries in Europe or my brain has died from shock, lack of food, or it’s the sweltering heat that keeps dripping sweat onto my diary.
At least I’m clean, though. Clean, caffeinated, and fed. Totally uncertain about the future, not even sure if I’ll be able to eat anything in a week, but at least right now I’m doing okay. Even Rachel and Cristina are in better moods.
Whenever we go for a walk around the streets we have to take our backpacks with us. We just want to see what our options are. Mentally, I’m trying to map out escape routes and see what connects to what. We get shouted at by just about every local. Maybe they think we’re coming to rob them, maybe they think we’re trying to find an empty house to break into. We can’t do too many walks because every time we come back to our camp site people seem to be getting closer and closer to our spot. It won’t be long until they move in completely and try to take our place. Ediz will say, “Six people are here.”
They will say, “There’s only two of you and five of us. Move over.”
“We’re saving that space.”
“There’s no saving. They’re not here so they lose it.”
I need more coffee.
Part 2.
I’ve been standing in the line for Gibraltar again, now for two hours. The guards are telling us that there are still no boats and no planes and they won’t let anyone in until there are boats and planes available. In the meantime, I’ve been studying the hell out of my Internet notes. In theory, I can now hot wire a car and pick a lock. I don’t have any picks or tools to break open a door, but I understand the theory. And if I find a magnifying glass I can start a fire with the sun. I’m learning how to make traps and how to hunt. It’s still all theory, since I can’t make a fire out here and there aren’t any rabbits worth catching. Ugh, what if one of those rabbits is covered in zombie fleas?
Part 3.
I’ve come back to the camp site and once again we’re counting off the countries we know, continent by continent. We also try the capital cities but it’s boring listening to people say the same places over and over again. There’s still no electricity.
Liam has been sitting outside our tarp for an hour as though he’s moving in with us whether we like it or not. He’s brought some people with him. There isn’t enough space here for him and his dickhead friends. I keep fearing that every time I line up to get into Gibraltar I’ll be turned away only to find that Liam’s friends have taken our spot and have managed to kick us out.
Ediz was asking me why I still write a diary. It gives me something to do, I guess. I started writing a diary in high school and never stopped. One day my life might be interesting enough for an autobiography, but right now I’m in the middle of something that everyone else is going through and I’m not doing anything remotely heroic about it. I’m just plodding along.
22 August
I woke up with incredible abdominal pain and hurried outside the tent without my backpack, turned back and had to grab it. By then Ediz, Rachel, and Cristina were awake and convinced that I’d seen a zombie or a soldier and was making a run for it. I ran to the public toilet and had to take a dump with my backpack sitting on my lap because the floor was absolutely rank with filth. I must have been in there for an hour, squeezing and trying to go. Even when I pissed it came in drips and drabs, barely anything. I also noticed there was no toilet paper so I rummaged through my bag to ready a pack of pocket tissues. After bursting a vein I passed something that felt like a solid pebble. Then, with the force of a thousand suns, everything else came gushing out. After that little episode it felt like someone had wiped my arsehole with a Guatemalan insanity pepper. I might actually need to see a doctor soon. I was sitting on the can for so long my legs had gone numb. Took five minutes to stand up.
I have since spent the day lying under the smelly tarp feeling hotter than anything, trying to sleep and not move. Maybe if I don’t move I won’t feel hungry or thirsty.
Cristina is finally at the stage of not caring and got changed in front of us. She said the bathrooms smelled so bad that she can’t go in there. Good God she is stunning. I caught a reasonable sight of her arse and some side-boob. She was careful not to look at anyone, despite there being five other people in the tarp.
The even better news is I haven’t seen Liam all day.
23 August
Liam woke me up early. Rachel rolled over and huffed. I had my game face on of being unimpressed with Liam, hoping he would pick up on the signal, but he actually had something worthwhile to say. There are a few restaurants in the area offering jobs. We would have to carry the crates of fish from the boats to the restaurants, as well as any wood or coal or fuel that the restaurants need, and they will feed us. In exchange for an hour or two of labour they’re offering us a free meal. I hadn’t eaten yesterday so I agreed. I tapped Rachel on the shoulder, told her what I was doing, and got Ediz and Azeem to help. The work was pretty tedious, just carrying crates of fish from the shore to the restaurants and back again. The restaurants sometimes use vans but with petrol being a scarce commodity these days it’s much cheaper using human labour. Some of the restaurants were twenty or thirty minutes away. We got lost a couple of times. Even so, we were done by ten, got fed, and we each brought back something for the girls. It’s not much but it’s free, kinda. Later today when the sun goes down a little I’m going to line up in front of Gibraltar again and try to find out when flights or boats might resume. It’s stupid because the zombies are already in every country and probably in every city. We all know what one looks like so we’re not going to let any of them onto a plane, and yet they’re stranding millions of people.
It’s the first time in days that I’ve left my backpack in the tent. It was all I could think about while I was lugging about the crates of fish. There are zombies somewhere in the country and I was at least a half hour walk, maybe a fifteen minute run, back to my things. If just one of those things popped up while I was carrying fish to a restaurant then I’m sure someone would have stolen my things, leaving me pretty much dead. And if I caught whoever robbed me I’d probably end up as a murderer and I’d walk towards Portugal.
Part 2.
I just came back from venting to Ediz by the beach. He had an interesting point which I had forgotten about: the zombies managed to spread before anyone realised there were zombies. It wasn’t an instant transformation, it was gradual, so someone could be infected, get on a plane as a human, land in London and spend the next few days getting worse before turning into a full blown zombie.
Part 3.
There are Africans going from tent to tent saying there are boats we can take, fishing boats even, which will help us get to any country we want. It seems like the dodgiest thing ever. Even Azeem tells them to piss off, but still these guys hang around.
24 August
Today was the same as yesterday – woke up to carry fish to restaurants, got fed, brought food back, waited under a tarp for six hours, got hassled by people trying to get us to take a boat to some far off country, waited in line to see what’s going on in Gibraltar, waited for the electricity to come back on, took another painful dump and felt my arse burning, and did my best to be polite to Liam, even when he asked me if I thought he had a chance with Cristina. No, you idiot, you certainly do not.
Carrying fish in crates by hand is exhausting. Each crate is about fifteen kilos and we have to carry it against our stomachs for up to half an hour at a time. My hands cramped up and started to blister from the bits of plastic that were sticking out. The salt water is also rubbing against my skin and burning me. My arms are like jelly the moment I drop off my load. Then I head back to the shore and do it all over again, following instructions that are in Spanish or broken English (at best), following hand gestures as though I know where this restaurant is or that restaurant is not. I don’t even have a map. I just have to remember the instructions by brute-force use of memory. “Bring this to Casa Iberica, down that street, fourth road on the left, take the next road right, go up, you’ll see it.” If I happen to see a local I need to ask them, “Casa Iberica?” They wave in some general direction and then through divine luck I manage to get to the right place. I hurry back to the shore and get shouted at for taking my time.
I’m getting better at mentally mapping out La Linea de la Concepción. The streets are narrow and a virtual death trap, but most of them go north to south or east to west. Some squiggle about but it’s not as bad as central London. Every so often, though, you come to a fork in the road that goes kinda left and kinda right. The roads aren’t perfectly straight either, so you can only see a hundred metres down one way and up the other. If they were straight then we’d have a better chance of spotting a zombie if it was chasing after us.
25 August
There was no work for me at the docks today. I got there too late. Gonna be hungry for a while. I can now recite forty African countries. I need to be back in London in a week or else I lose my job.
28 August
It’s Sunday. Nothing’s open. We’ve been waiting here for twelve days now. England has pushed their quarantine up to five days. I have no Internet to tell work that I won’t be back in time. I’ll be fired for not turning up.
29 August
I had just delivered two crates of fish this morning and was about to offload a third from the boat when I looked into the water and saw a human body. It had been dead for a while and, thankfully, wasn’t moving. Maybe it was a zombie. Maybe it was an innocent person who drowned. I can’t help but think that there are people fishing in zombie-infested waters, that the fish might be eating the zombies, and that I’m eating those fish. I don’t know what to do about it. I delivered the fish and was told they’re out of rice, so the only thing available is fish. I ate it anyway.