Authors: Gregg Cocking
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And then I started to take in more and more of what was happening on the screen – it wasn’t a riot, it was a feeding frenzy. These people, the slower, dirtier looking ones, were herding the rest together and randomly attacking them in the chaos. I have seen footage of how whale sharks and dolphins attack sardines in what is called a ‘bait ball’ during the annual Sardine Run, and this is what was happening these people.
What I saw next sent shivers down my spine. A bloody woman that had been attacked, stood up and vomited. Just like I had seen people doing a couple of times before. While the madness ensued around her, and while blood streamed from a bite on her upper arm, she just emptied her guts. And then she tripped a young teenage boy as he tried to escape two other…
people
, and bent down and started mauling the boy’s thigh. They were mutating in front of my eyes.
Next, the camera work which had been pretty shaky already, probably from trying to follow all the action at the same time, became seriously unstable. Then I saw why. Three
people
had broken from the crowd and were headed straight for the source of the footage. The face of the cameraman, a blonde guy probably in his late twenties, appeared in the top right corner of the screen as he tried to loosen the camera from probably what was a tripod. He looked panicked and, clearly, quite petrified. As he struggled with the camera, the three
people
, one woman and two men, all sporting bloodied mouths and shredded, unkempt clothes, kept on heading towards him in their somewhat ungainly walking style. The cameraman glanced over his left shoulder at them, and if there had been sound to the visuals I am sure I would have heard him groan or scream, or both. They were now close enough to make out their features, and what I noticed first were their eyes – there was no life, no emotion... just unblinking nothingness.
The cameraman gave the camera one more desperate tug but only managed to change the video feed from colour to black and white. The three were almost upon him now – in monotone the blood was now just a black smear on their empty faces. The cameraman shot them another nervous look before discarding the camera and, I hope, making a run for it. The picture shook violently as the camera fell and rested on its side. Pandemonium in the background caused the picture to rapidly go in and out of focus. Suddenly a face appeared and the focus calmed down. A man, probably close to sixty though it was hard to tell because of the angle and the blood which covered the whole left hand side of his face, leaned forward and appeared to sniff the camera, his motionless eyes peering right through the television screen into my lounge. All of a sudden he lunged for the camera and I squealed, jumping back and slamming into the corner of my coffee table. Then the video loop started again.
I am in so much shock it is unbelievable. People are eating each other…
Alright. Well after watching that shit on TV I just had to go out and see what was going on with my own eyes. I wasn’t going to go anywhere near Nelson Mandela Square mind you. But even before I climbed into my car, Mrs. Myburg, one of my elderly neighbours, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. I was so close to doing the only thing I could think of to protect myself – poking my car key in my assailant’s eye – when I saw that it was her and noticed the tears rolling down her heavily wrinkled cheeks. “Please, Samuel… Its Walter… Walter is sick.” She broke down and threw her head onto my shoulder. I didn’t even have to ask what his symptoms were.
After determining whether it was safe to check up on him – Mrs. Myburg assured me that he was ‘resting’ – I made my way to their ground floor simplex, just a few hundred metres from my townhouse. I nudged open the front door with a spade which I picked up from a pile of the garden service’s discarded tools, and called out, “Mr. Myburg? Mr. Myburg, its Sam. Are you okay?” I got no answer. Mrs. Myburg had told me that he was in the main bedroom so I made my way through the open plan kitchen and lounge, noting the typical array of ‘crapper’ (my term for the clutter old people usually have lying around – porcelain cats, Japanese fans, ornate frames which usually stand empty), which seemed to adorn every spare centimetre of space. “Mr. Myburg?” I called again, and this time I was sure that I heard him replying – but not the way I would have wanted him to reply – it was a guttural, primitive sound. I told Mrs. Myburg to wait in the lounge and she dutifully did what she was told, sitting down on the horrible mustard coloured couch as I inched my way to the room.
I poked my head around the door, not knowing what to expect, so what I saw, not unexpectedly, was a huge shock. There was Mr. Myburg, a tall, lanky man, crouched on the bed, his back at an angle which wouldn’t have pleased his chiropractor, grumbling and moaning in low, rhythmic bursts. The bedspread was coated in what I think must have been puke, and the smell was utterly foul – I can remember that it made my eyes water when I first entered.
After what I had just seen on TV, I was tempted to start swinging with the spade (it seemed so unlike me – I run at the first hint of a fight – but I don’t know if it was the survival instinct or what, but I was ready to kill. But then I remembered Mrs. Myburg. I couldn’t exactly go around trying to decapitate her husband while she was waiting in the lounge on that horrible couch, could I?). So I thought that I would go back to her and explain that we needed to go get help. As I turned around to go tell her though, the spade, which I must have lifted to a striking position when I was contemplating murder, clanged against the most horrid bronze door handle that I have ever seen. That eyesore was the least of my worries though, as Mr. Myburg groaned louder than before and slowly turned his head to face me. And I saw his eyes. The same eyes that had struck me on the TV. I fumbled for the key in the lock – which was on the bedroom side as luck would have it, and quickly slammed the door shut as the former Mr. Myburg started to make his way ungainly off the bed. I locked the door and checked the handle twice, then went back and checked it a third a time. As Mrs. Myburg asked, “Is everything alright?” I heard a thumping on the door.
“Um, yes, it is. We just need to go get some help for Mr. Myburg. A doctor,” I said. “Why, what’s wrong with him?” she asked me, fidgeting with her wedding ring with her right hand. “Why can’t we take him with?” she almost whined. At that point, her husband let out a… roar would probably be the best way to describe it. She didn’t even have to look at me to understand that that was why.
I almost dragged her to my car, let her in and jumped into the front seat. Apart from a Staffordshire bull terrier that was wandering around the undercover parking bays, the complex was deserted – even the security guards had deserted their posts. I pressed the remote that each resident has to enter and exit the complex, and made sure that the gate closed behind me as we drove out. We were now out in the open and I had no idea what to expect.
I asked Mrs. Myburg if there was anywhere I could take her, any family or friends nearby who she could stay with. I think we both knew that a doctor wouldn’t do her husband any good. She said that her sister-in-law lived in Greenstone, a relatively new suburb a short two or three kilometres from my complex (thankfully), so I eased the car onto the street, which was unusually deserted for an afternoon during the week. We turned right on Pallister Road and headed towards Terrace Road, one of the busiest roads in Edenvale, which we had to cross over to head towards Greenstone. But we didn’t get that far. An overturned Honda was blocking the road, but it wasn’t that that was the real problem – it was the gang, maybe ten, maybe more, of those
people
, dragging a young man out of the upturned car which was more disconcerting.
Now I have always taken pride in my car, a pitch black 1,6 Comfortline Special Edition Volkswagen Polo – I am sure you will recall me mentioning it a couple of times in my blogs – but my love for my car vanished the second I threw it into first and headed for the overturned car. I was within a mere few metres when Mrs. Myburg, who I had actually forgotten was sitting next to me, said in a voice which was barely audible, “It’s too late. Look, he’s dead.” I slammed on brakes and screeched to a standstill as I noticed that the guy who was being yanked from the car was indeed dead, his neck hanging at an unnatural angle as a man in nothing but luminous yellow running shorts tried to pull the dead man’s body out of the exposed and broken windscreen by his arm. Running Shorts man yanked at Dead Man again with all his might, while two others, a lady in a miniskirt which was riding up so high her mother would have had something to say, and another guy with a mullet of some distinction, clambered around the side to try and help. That was until they noticed us, a good ten or fifteen seconds after the sound of my Polo braking had sliced through the silence of the carnage like an owl’s call on a still night.
Running Shorts, just when he was starting to make progress, although by now the dead guy’s shoulder was severely dislocated, raised his head slowly and looked at us with those empty eyes, and made a sound between groaning and growling. Miniskirt, Mullet and their friends all turned towards us in unison and I could hear Mrs. Myburg’s breathing rapidly speeding up, as I am sure mine was. As they arduously got to their feet, I ground the gears into reverse and sped into a gravel driveway, the wheels spinning as I slammed on the brakes again and shifted into first. I heard a howl to my left and a scratching from behind as Mullet, probably the fittest looking of the lot, managed to grab hold of the back windscreen wiper. I thrust my foot down as if my life depended on it (and maybe it did), and we were off. I glanced in my rear view mirror as we sped away from Terrace Road, and saw Mullet, through a cloud of dust, clutching to my windscreen wiper as his friends hovered around, unsure of whether to go back to Dead Man in the car or chase us.
So, to cut a long story short, we, after a couple of dead ends and U-turns, managed to get to Mrs. Myburg’s sister-in-law’s place. Phyllis, and her husband Colin, kindly invited me to take shelter in their home while “this passed” – their words – but although a secure little village and a house with pretty high walls was tempting, I had to refuse. I don’t know why.
Although I took the same route home which eventually got me to Phyllis and Colin, I was met with a totally different picture – cars everywhere. Terrace Road, which I had eventually crossed further down from Pallister, was reminiscent of Rivonia Road at 8am on a Monday morning. I managed to force my way back across, and although people were shouting at me from all angles to; “Follow us – we’re getting the fuck out of here,” I just felt like a sitting duck out there in the open with no place to go if one of those
things
decided to attack. So I got back from my escape, the complex still as silent and as eerie as a graveyard – and, luckily, no sign of Walter. I parked my car right at the bottom of the steps up to my place, quickly grabbed the remaining tools which the garden service had discarded – a rake, a fork, a roll up hose and the spade which I had chucked onto my back seat, and went inside and cracked open a beer. Then another. And another. Luckily (I suppose), I only had three left in my fridge or else I would have carried on drinking.
I locked the front door and then the balcony door, and double and triple checked the front door and balcony door, shut all the windows and pushed the couch up against the front door just in case. I then sat down and tried to comprehend and process what I had seen today. I must have done that for a few hours, because when I snapped out of my silent daze I was sitting in complete darkness. I looked for something to eat, settling on a peanut butter sandwich – I didn’t want to whip together anything that would make a noise – and got onto my computer to write this blog. It’s now past one, and although I don’t feel tired I know I need to try and get some sleep. If I can.
Take care
Sam W
9:21am, May 7
Hey, Sam here. Hope that you and your loved ones are safe. Me? I still can’t get hold of either Lil or my folks, either on their cells or the landlines. Funnily enough, I can’t seem to get anyone on their landlines, and that includes the police and local hospitals. Yesterday that’s what I did. After waking at about 11 – I must have tossed and turned until just after dawn – I tried to figure out what was going on.
Local authorities? You gotta be kidding. Landlines all engaged or just dead. Toll free numbers not operating. I did hear a police car speeding past outside, one of only a handful of cars that I have heard in the last few days, but by the time I got to the kitchen window to have a look out over Erasmus Road it had gone past and I didn’t want to open the window and lean out in case I drew attention myself.
I have managed to speak to a few people on their cell phones – most though were off or went to voicemail… Accounts similar to mine are the norm, some having fled their homes for places that they deem safer – two friends, Owen and Johan, are with, they reckon, about a three hundred others at Eastgate shopping centre, although they aren’t sure if they were simply there when this all went down, or whether they headed there on purpose. Either way, they are barricaded in there and, luckily, have the services of a good fifteen or twenty armed security guards at their disposal. We have organised to call each other every morning to check in and see what news there is. Melanie, a good friend from school is with her boyfriend and brother on their way to Durban – they reckon it will be safer than Jo’burg. She says the roads have been quiet and not too many signs of disturbances. We have also agreed to keep in touch on a daily basis.