Free Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London by Frank Tayell

tied around my belt the other around the bag I could make my way back upstairs and then pull my haul up afterwards.
    I didn’t bring much up, just the books, the batteries, a few different spices and the real find of the day, a tiny camping stove. No, that's far too glamorous a way to describe it. In one of Jessica's books it'd be a proper camping stove, one with gas cylinders and an oven attachment (and it'd be found next to a stash of freeze dried food with enough spare fuel to last the rest of the apocalypse). Really it's nothing more than a small tripod upon which a saucepan can sit and underneath there's a little tray for fuel pellets. It's basically the sort of thing you can build yourself with stuff lying around if you think of it, which, I’ll admit, I didn't.
    Now I can have tea, oh what joy! What true blue Englishman wouldn't rejoice at such a prospect? There was no sign of any fuel pellets though, so I’m making do with what I’ve got to hand, namely the wooden handles of my cutlery.
    It takes an age though. I stuck the small saucepan on before I started writing this entry and the water still hasn't boiled. Oh, how I’m looking forward to that first cup of tea!
    All in all things are slightly better than this morning. If I can come up with a way of using the flour. (Can you make cakes with just flour and water? I suppose I'll find out) I think I've about fifty days worth of food. It's far from a balanced diet, but it is calories. How long does it take for scurvy to develop?
     
    Day 6, 72 days to go.
     
    03:00, 18 th March.
    I can't sleep. Of course I can't sleep. What the hell did I think, that some moment of serene acceptance of my fate was going to come upon me after I'd had a cup of tea?
    What if no one comes? There. I've written it down. I didn’t want to, out of some bloody stupid fear that writing it down would make it more real. Of course it doesn't. The reality is I've fifty days of food, which means sooner, not later, I'm going to have to go out into that living hell. Christ! I want to stomp and smash and swear and shout with the sheer unfairness of it all. But I can't. They might hear me. Have you ever tried to vent your frustration by writing down swear words? Try it, it's just not the same.
    If I could walk properly I'd be fine. I've not seen any of Them move faster than a brisk walk, not outside and not on the footage I saw online. I saw those shots from the traffic cameras in Rio, you won't have seen those, I bet, hours upon hours as millions slouched slowly passed. The military summary, and you won't have seen that either I’m guessing, reported their maximum speed at about five miles an hour and I can walk faster than that, any true Londoner can. Marching along, sidestepping traffic, tourists and taxis whilst drinking a latte and making a phone call is practically in the citizenship test.
    That's without a broken leg. Even when the leg's healed I’m not going to manage more than three or four miles an hour at best. Probably less. Definitely less. If the cast is due off in seventy two days then I'll need physio for a few months just to build up the muscles again. At least for a few months, and how am I meant to survive that long? It just can't be done. When hunger forces me out how am I meant to outpace the undead? I'll be slower than Them, and it's not like They're all going to be behind me. They'll be in front, to the sides, in the buildings above me, even in the sewers for all I know.
    If I’m being honest, and why the hell shouldn't I be honest, being forced out of here by hunger in fifty days is the best case scenario. Forty nine days three hours now, since I'd be best heading out at first light. There are at least a dozen plumes of smoke in the sky. None are close enough that I can make out exactly where they are coming from, but that's hardly reassuring. If it turns into another dry year then how long before the whole city catches fire.
    Then there's the chance They spot me and start