Last Words (31 page)

The Algerians who brought us have been beyond hospitable. We parked the cars at the entrance of the city. Us, being tourists, waited in the back of the cars while people got a good look at us. The guys we’ve been travelling with went out and tried to find places for us to stay. They were gone for an hour and came back with clothes. We’re dressed in turbans and full desert attire. We don’t blend in at all. I feel like a janitor who’s wearing his first suit to go to a wedding surrounded by upper class snobs. The turbans have face wraps and the guys tried to show us how to put them on correctly. Cristina and Rachel are in burkas. If anyone knows we’re white then they might be compelled to report us to the authorities. The walk from the car to the middle of town was a little surreal. It’s as shoulder to shoulder as Disneyland on a free-entry day. It’s also really obvious with our backpacks and lack of local knowledge that we don’t belong here.

Ghardaia, I must say, is somewhere I would return to if this wasn’t the end of the world. It’s a tightly packed, small city where everything looks like it’s made from mud brick. The city is built in the desert so there’s sand everywhere. There aren’t so much roads as pathways. There’s no concrete at all. Most people are wearing t-shirts and baseball caps, so it’s even harder to blend in with our borrowed outfits. We’re avoiding the main ‘roads’ as much as possible and we’ve kept to the outskirts of town.

We’re staying on someone’s floor. It’s a one-room ground-floor apartment. The owner, Ahmed, lives in this tiny room and has offered it to the four of us. It’s a little scary knowing that all of our Algerian contacts have left. Perhaps they’re rounding up the police, but I’ve had nothing but good vibes from our driver so I’m trying to stay optimistic. Cristina, Rachel, and Ediz are quietly shitting themselves but I’m doing my best to reinforce some positive thinking. If this blows up in my face they’ll never believe me again. If it works well then I might regain some of their trust.

I’m not sure why I think I’ve lost their trust, perhaps because I had a migraine not too long ago and they all but had to carry me to safety. It’s been an uneasy ride through all of this and there are times when we just wanted to kill each other. We’re making nothing but bad decisions and we all recognise it, but sometimes making a bad decision is better than making no decision.

We should have gone to Rabat with Azeem and Lalla.

It’s occurred to me that I’ve been sleeping next to Rachel for two months. The four of us are barely capable of talking to each other, but we don’t dare leave each other in case we get separated for good. Who knows when a zombie will come out here? Who knows when the police will throw us into a cell and go through our things again? I sleep with my back pack as a pillow and I still wake up three times a night to make sure it’s still there.

The convoy of cars decided on Ghardaia because it really is in the middle of nowhere. Algiers could be nuked and Ghardaia will just keep on going. I doubt the zombies would make it far through the desert, either. As strange as it sounds, Africa might end up doing the best out of this apocalypse since there are large stretches of inhospitable land which makes it a nuisance for a zombie to walk through. Not that it would care, mind you.

Part 2.

Ahmed came back. He’s a cook. He’s also just nineteen. He has cracked skin and wrinkles which make him look thirty. He brought us back some dates and dessert from his restaurant. Ediz was speaking to him and he says there hasn’t been a single zombie in the area. Ahmed says it’s ridiculous that the rest of the world believes what is happening. I guess they’re a little isolated here.

We got an update from Algiers. Fighter jets and bombers have been attacking the government buildings. I’m under the impression that what happened in Haiti is now happening here. Ahmed is a little uneasy about the bombings and the militant uprising because someone is attacking his home country.

I say ‘a little uneasy’. Far from it. But there’s little he can do and he’s far away from the carnage.

It’s quiet outside. There isn’t much traffic and there isn’t much music. It seems peaceful. I wonder how long we’ll be here for.

16 September

Last night, Ahmed was making some serious moves on Cristina. She pretended she didn’t understand. He said she could sleep in his bed and when she refused he came down to lie on the ground next to her. As soon as Rachel figured out what he was doing she pulled my arm around her waist. We spent most of the night awkwardly spooning. When we woke up she thanked me for not making a move.

Cristina wants to leave. She said Ahmed kept feeling her up through the night. She even got up to move and he followed her. She farted on him. That got him to leave and go back to his bed. We’re going to be kicked out soon, I can tell. It’s a shame. He was nice yesterday, now he just seems like a prick.

Part 2.

Okay, so we didn’t leave the city, we just moved to another house. This one has a family so already Cristina feels more comfortable, but she told Ediz that as far as anyone else is concerned they are now boyfriend and girlfriend. He countered and said that they would have to be married to deter a lot of people. So, Cristina and Ediz are now ‘married’. Guess what kind of conversation I had with Rachel today? Yeah. We too are ‘married’.

Cristina and Rachel are helping the wife of the family cook. I did my best at waving to the little boy here and playing some basic games. He’s never seen a white guy before and I terrify him with my pasty-white vampire skin.

I haven’t seen much of the city. I’m in full hiding mode, so I can’t go sight seeing when I could be arrested on the spot.

17 September

We’re still in Ghardaia. There are no obvious plans to leave. We want to leave but there’s no one who will take us away from here. Apparently this is the safest place to be – in a desert city five hundred miles from the capital city. I was able to get a few minutes online and I sent an email to my folks. There were a dozen from them and I glanced at the most recent. They’re still alive. England has locked itself off from the rest of the world. I couldn’t read it all because I didn’t have the time. The email that really fucking pissed me off was from work. I’m out of a job. No surprise, really, since I was supposed to be back seventeen days ago. But I sent them emails a month ago explaining my situation.

Rachel and I are not going to be able to get back into England for a long, long time. Not that it really matters right now since we’re not able to leave Ghardaia for a long, long time either.

20 September

Still in Ghardaia. Rachel and Cristina have been staying at ‘home’ with Bahija and the kids. They’re bored out of their minds. Apparently the kids spend all day calling out: “BaBAH! BaBAH!”

Ediz and I have been working for Abbas. We’re working for food, basically. I can’t complain because he and Bahija are feeding us and putting us up in their home, plus it’s better being busy than sitting around being bored. We’re doing minimum wage stuff like cleaning, lifting, and carrying crates from one place to another. It’s the least we could do, considering that we’d be dead without someone’s hospitality.

It’s been decent food. Mostly stew. Chickpeas, bits of potato, tomatoes, and onions. Sometimes flat bread on the side. The variation comes in the amount of pepper that goes into the dish.

Ediz and I are out in the streets wearing disguises, which might pass at the first glance but the moment someone locks onto my eyes they know I’m out of place. We’re carrying crates and shopping to other people. They talk to us but we can’t respond, or at least I can’t respond, because I don’t know the language. Ediz doesn’t say much because they can hear his accent and know he’s a foreigner. Sometimes we get shouted at.

We’re being treated well. If I ever get out of here and make some money I might come back and pay everyone a visit, legitimately this time. This whole situation probably sucks for Abbas and Bahija as well. They probably don’t like to have people stay at their house with no end in sight, invading their privacy and begging for work, shelter, and food. If any of us say the wrong thing we’ll be kicked out.

I haven’t been able to blow off steam in two months and it’s driving me up the walls. In Spain three of us could speak the language to some degree. In Morocco a lot of the locals also spoke English. Here we need Ediz to communicate all the time and his accent gives him away.

22 September

Rachel was awake all night with horrendous cramps. She spent two hours squatting at the toilet with diarrhoea. She came back in a cold sweat. I asked if she needed the doctor but she shook her head and cried herself to sleep.

23 September

Cristina came to me and asked if Rachel was pregnant. Imagine my surprise with that. Cristina said there was so much blood coming out of Rachel that she thought she had a miscarriage.

25 September

A doctor came to see Rachel. I had to be there because I’m her husband. He wasn’t pleased to see that we were white and hiding in burkas and turbans. Nor was he pleased that Ediz and Cristina had to be there for translation and moral support. The doctor inspected Rachel with all of us in the room. It’s not the greatest of sights seeing your friend with her legs up in the air, sweating and bleeding, convinced that she’s about to die.

Rachel is not pregnant. Nor was she. It’s not pleasant to write about, but she had intestinal worms, probably from infected water or badly cooked meat. The three of us broke into a sweat when we heard that because we’ve been eating and drinking the same thing. The doctor didn’t give Rachel any medication. Bahija has some home remedies that she’s trying. We are all going to have to stay put to make sure we’re clear of worms as well.

Rachel’s now fifty three kilos. She’s lost more than twenty kilos since leaving England. I’m down to sixty five. I was seventy eight when I left. I was seventy two when I arrived in Madrid.

There’s no update from Clint. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing. I just want to know that Basil is okay but that asshole won’t reply to any of my emails. The lease is in his name and I’d kinda like to know if I still have a room in my apartment.

3 October

I honestly didn’t know what date it was until I asked Abbas. I’d lost track. It doesn’t even feel like the 3rd of October. I’m not sure what it should feel like, but to go more than a week without a diary entry is doing my head in, considering some days had eight or nine entries in them.

I’ve been learning phrases in Arabic thanks to Ediz. I had been doing the same with Spanish and Italian. I don’t remember any Spanish or Italian any more. Nor will I remember much Arabic by the time I get back home.

We’re leaving Ghardaia today. There’s a bus that can take us towards Tunisia. We were finally able to do enough work for Abbas to pay for a bus ticket for the four of us. He explained to the driver what the situation is. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to be leaving. All of that walking around through the city was a nightmare. The crates have given me blisters on top of blisters and my fingers are shredded.

The bombing of Algiers continues. The borders are closed. There are still some trucks that can get through but they are carefully inspected and bribes are needed. We don’t have enough money to bribe anyone.

Rachel is feeling better. Cristina had a bought of sympathy sickness. Our weight loss has stabilised. Our headaches have gone and our stay here has actually done us some good. I was able to send a quick email to my folks telling them where I was and what our plan is. Italy still remains the best option.

I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every time we’ve travelled something has fucked us up and we’ve all been convinced that it would have been better to go in the other direction. We have no idea what we’re going to do when we get to the border. We have no idea where to go or who to speak to. We have no idea what will happen if rebels form a blockade and throw us off the bus. They’ll probably film us as they shoot us for being spies. I wish I was exaggerating about that part but I’ve seen the news.

The apocalypse was supposed to unite everyone against a common enemy. Instead it’s turned into a desperate grab for power and revenge.

5 October

I’m selling my soul to the BBC.

We were on the bus for fourteen hours and nearly died of heat and boredom. When we got to our destination someone in a uniform approached us. They put me onto the phone with a BBC news correspondent in Tunis, Tunisia. I was finally useful! I spoke to Simon Gillard, who, like other journalists in northern Africa, is kinda stuck where he is with no way out and are doing reports on life amid a zombie outbreak. He was able to convince the uniformed man to get us onto a train and fit us with Press Passes. We’re still in Algeria but we’re on the train now, heading north, so that we can cross the border. When we’re in Tunisia we’re going to call Simon again and he’ll get us to his hotel. He said it will take a few days to get there, but Tunis is not as badly affected by the outbreak of undead and guided missiles.

This kind of excitement is almost too much to bare. Hearing another English voice for the first time in months was a joy. The train is rocky and slow. We’re almost there. Just a few more days of traversing borders and unknown countries and we’ll be okay.

Part 2.

We’ve been stopped for six hours. Everyone was escorted off the train so that the police could inspect it. Then all of our IDs were checked and double checked. We were waiting outside in the sun for three hours, slowly burning to a crisp. We were shitting ourselves again but the Moroccans seemed to have done us a favour by stamping our passports illegally. We gave the police here Simon’s phone number. I don’t know if they spoke to him or not but the senior guy didn’t seem all that interested in dealing with the BBC.