(After he takes the tape out of the machine, there is a ringing silence in the room)
Was that the last you heard from the government?
For the next… year and a half, yeah.
Did you know how they were getting on?
We had an idea, of course, all the ships and boats you saw in the sea those days had something to say to us over the radio – One bloke, Rob, did the age-old thing of hooking a bicycle, minus its wheels, to a generator to make electricity. We mainly powered the two-way radio and the freezer with it. Anyway, small boats and some bigger private craft would often wander into the Solent – some had run out of power, others were 'just looking around' and some landed on shore to scavenge – and they nearly always had a friendly word to say to us. We traded with some, people as well as other stuff-
People?
Oh, not like slaves, No! That first Grey Winter when all the Zed-heads had frozen we were free to do what we wanted. A small cargo vessel – the sort of thing that would wander between the Scottish Islands, only it flew a Croatian Flag – turned up one morning and said over the radio that there were a couple of 'Britishers' on board who would like to land. I don't know why they didn't make their way to the Antonine Zone – though they were Isle-of-Wighters' so perhaps they wanted to get home. Anyway, one or two of our group were sick of castle life and so joined the crew of that ship to sail away, so we essentially swapped two complainers for two hard-working sailors – we didn't mind.
Do you know what happened to that ship?
As a matter of fact, yes. During the early days of the 'Maritime Sweep & Clear', when they were identifying all of the refugee ships and abandoned hulks about halfway through the 'March to New York', that ship was found off the coast of Argentina, powerless and full of Zeds.
Ah.
Exactly.
You said 'nearly always', were some ships hostile?
Yep. Some never replied - either they'd utterly run out of power or they didn't speak English, but others would reply with something like this (he gets out another tape to put in his cassette player. Seeing my expression, he laughs) We all had a hobby in that castle - mine was woodwork, but Alice's was recording all of the messages we sent and received - apart from Radio Free Earth and the regular BBC broadcasts. When I told her you were coming here she lent me these. Anyway...
(The voice is speaking in heavily accented English, perhaps eastern European)
"This is Captain Petrescu of the MS Mangalia. We have you outnumbered and outgunned. Stand down and prepare to be occupied."
This was a medium-sized cargo vessel - she wasn't flying any flag and I haven't found any ship in recent times that used that name, but we were definitely outnumbered. There were roughly twenty of us versus at least fifty of them, from what we could see on their deck. I think the captain had delusions of being a pirate, raiding settlements and other ships.
What did you do?
We did what he told us to do - prepare. We kitted up, sent out a message to Carisbrooke Castle just to warn them, then sat tight. Our plan was to wait until they landed - they had small boats but the only place in the immediate area they could land was the slipway - the boardwalks in the Marina had long gone dangerous.
When did this happen?
Oh, Sorry! This was... about two months in. We'd gathered a moat of Zeds by then but we reckoned we were impregnable - the door had about thirty locking bars and God knows how many chains across it - all of it our work. We had a big piece of plywood studded with nails ready for this to happen (we had a lot of free time to plan every conceivable situation), which we put on the floor just behind the door in case they - the pirates - got through. I was the lookout to tell them what was happening - I got shot at from the ship at first but I heard shouting and they stopped - I think to preserve ammo. All fifty bundled into two small boats the ship was towing and then they rowed to the slipway.
They never got there. There were several Zeds underwater that seemed oblivious of our moat - perhaps they couldn't hear the moans from our lot, being underwater - but they noticed the boats alright. I heard shouts and screams, then the men started shooting into the water and reaching down to try to hit the Zeds with hammers or something. The water all around the first boat was all frothy as if it was a hot tub. First one man was pulled in, then the entire boat was capsized. The screams didn't last very long, which was a relief. The second boat hadn't got to shallow enough water to be attacked yet, they turned tail and went back to the ship.
Then what happened?
We disassembled our 'human attack' gear, told Carisbrooke that all was OK and that was that.
Hang on, we've got a bit sidetracked...
Oh, yes. Sorry.
So, back to where we were. What happened after the 'fend for yourselves' broadcast?
That marked the end of law and order on the Isle of Wight for the next seven years. The Council did a good job of covering up how bad the situation was on the Island for the next few weeks, but we heard from the few people that turned up asking if we'd let them in. We always did at first, until later when we had to tell them to try their luck elsewhere when we started to get worried about the supply situation. Fortunately, I suppose, a few people just died when asleep for no apparent reason, and some others left to try to go somewhere they liked.
Anyway, I saw my first ever Zed, in the flesh, in the third week. The local radio station had gone down and we hadn't heard anything from the Council. The police presence that there had been had just vanished... though not after they had a gunfight with one of the groups in a house - they'd been chaining up their reanimated loved ones instead of killing them and the police had an issue with that. On the Wednesday of that third week - the police had left on Sunday - I went up to the second story to look out and there was one coming out of a house-door. This was one of the houses we'd cleared under the orders of that Prison Warden and I'd never seen anyone else go in, so God only knows what that Zed was doing there, and He hasn't told me yet. He-it was an oldish man, wearing typical civilian survival clothes - camouflage trousers, jacket, wide-brimmed hat - and with a little bit of a podgey belly. He can't have heard anything from our hideout because he ambled slowly down the road towards the Church, and I lost sight of him then - there were a few buildings in the way. About an hour later I heard a gunshot from the direction of the Church.
We spent those quiet days working. My mum was a garden designer so I'd picked up a few things and Rob knew a lot about gardening - it was quite funny really, he was a great burly bloke with a hat and a huge beard, tattoo's galore on his arms and a Hells-Angels-style biker, knowing about gardening and nearly breaking down in tears when his petunia's died - so we got more soil from the local gardening center and gardens, read up on 'How to Grow an Allotment' and 'Allotment Growing for Dummies', and planted our first spuds, carrots and a few other things on the grassed-over gun platform. Because the gun platform is really quite exposed we found big pieces of plywood and built a wall around the garden to protect it from the wind, then we built a kind of scaffolding on the inside to support the plywood in high winds. We made shutters for the windows, an armory of weapons made of things like fence-posts, pickaxes and large hammers, an obstacle course in the area just inside the door so that if the Zeds got in there were some obstructions to them getting through, and a host of other stuff. I suppose I'm boring you, aren't I?
Not at all, the more detail the better.
Really? Okay then. Let's see... We built fences in the alleyway to stop too much pressure building up on the doors - a bit like with the lorries protecting the doors in that pre-war zombie film where they hole up in a mall. There was that water crane I mentioned earlier, extra supports for the roof when we feared it might cave in after a really heavy rain, separate 'cabins' for each of us-
How quickly did you work?
Oh, this wasn't in the first few weeks before we attracted a moat, this was for the whole time we were there. We had lots of time, so we often occupied ourselves with making plans for every conceivable event: fires, floods, the Zeds getting in, attack by people, disease, bad harvests, crumbling masonry... loads of plans. All of them written on paper and stored in the 'library', which was a small room which we fitted with shelves and filled with all things paper-based: categorised, files and books, fiction and non-fiction... We spent a lot of time focusing on fire, as so much of our work on the inside was made of wood. We had buckets of sand and water in every room and corridor, and an evacuation plan.
Evacuation plan?
We were in contact with the rest of the world, as I said: Ships, the remnants of the Council at the Prison, the group in Carisbrooke Castle... we even talked to the Government of the Channel Islands by relay a few times a year. Anyway, we'd heard of those disasters at those other castles and forts, Britain and abroad; like that place where they all died of disease, or that fire at Avignon. So we all got together after hearing of what new disaster had struck some group somewhere and planned what to do if the same should happen to us, so we came up with an evacuation plan.
It was quite a good plan as well. The building next to the castle had a locked door and a flat roof; we managed to string a rope bridge across the garden in between using a grapple, then we fortified that building before using it for stores. The Zeds didn't build up around that building because, while the person going across the bridge into the building would always attract some, he - or she - would always come back again, drawing the Zeds back to the nearly impregnable Castle. It was impregnable that side anyway - there was no door and there was a building butting up against the castle between the castle and the alleyway. What we did was go over in a pair, then one person would come back immediately while the second did what they went there to do - find something or put something away - who would then come back drawing any leftover Zeds. The evacuation plan involved us getting to that second building, piling into the lorry - the building was a vehicle workshop and we managed to get a lorry in there because the road widens - and then driving off towards the Prison or Carisbrooke Castle. We all carried whistles to warn each other of an emergency, there was a big bell we'd clang at night time and we even had practice drills.
What else did you do while under siege?
All the things like watch films and listen to the radio, obviously. After we made contact with Supreme Command they dropped in some stuff by helicopter - cheap stuff like survival kits and an old TV. We hooked the TV up to the bicycle and watched the evening programs every night. It's weird, almost the entire world had been lost to the undead, what was left of the living was struggling for survival and yet TV companies all around the world did very well - the BBC included. It was all transmitted by satellite from where it was filmed to the broadcasting base of each safe zone where it was then rebroadcast - our broadcasting base was obviously in Inverness. We didn't have a great picture, what with the distance and all, but we enjoyed ourselves, which was the enitre point.
What programs were available to you?
Didn't you watch TV during the war?
Well, yes, but I was in America and in the safe zone. I thought it would be interesting to know what a blue zone in Britain would have had in terms of Television.
'Blue Zone'?
American code for a Civilian fortress not in the safe zone.
Ah, right. Well, we had all the BBC documentaries, old pre-war stuff they'd kept on tape and had got up to Scotland. I think every year in Winter they sent a team down to London to get some more tapes, there was always more variety come spring every year. There were nature programs, cooking programs, some show about three middle-aged men who act like six-year-olds in cars all day, Doctor Who, the rubbish soap operas that I never watched, the news, obviously, comedy panel shows - one program which was really popular here before the war, where a famous gay cleverclogs sits on a panel show with four other comedians, with one regular who they continually took the mickey of, continued production right through the war and beyond. The set changed of course, but it was always very funny. Watching it, with them joking around while telling you interesting but useless stuff, you'd forget the Zombie Apocalypse had happened and you'd think you were just with some mates in a sitting room, huddled around mugs of tea and with not a care about how the weather might affect the harvest. The only problem with that was after the show had ended, reality would come back to you like a boomerang the weight of a battleship.
There were foreign programs as well. Those films about how 'America is Awesome' and 'Technology will Save the Day' and 'We will Win this' that came out of the Rocky zone were aired over here - I must admit they were very good. Cuban television programs started appearing about a year before the Honolulu conference, all dubbed in English, or at least with English subtitles. The film makers in the Unified Alps Zone threw stuff at us as well - including a french remake of 'I'm a Celebrity', only in the pine forests of Switzerland, not the Jungles of Australia, or wherever it was it used to be filmed.
The Radio we'd have on all day. There was always a breakfast show, on weekdays presented by one well known ginger radio DJ - I can't mention names can I?
Ideally not.
Right. Well, even though there was only one radio channel during the war maintained by the BBC it mostly followed the format of the most popular BBC radio channel before the war. The ginger broadcaster I mentioned had the breakfast show until half-past-nine, from then there was some bloke who hosted a quiz until midday after which there was a talk show. I avoided that show like the plague before the war - sorry, bad expression - because of all the nutters that would phone in and give their bigoted opinions on how the world should be run even though they didn't have any experience in running the world, but on war-time scheduling it was much more lighthearted, about things like what colour to paint a baby's room or peoples tips on getting a fire started. The talk show finished at two 'o' clock, after which it then changed every day. On Mondays there was a comedy show, Tuesdays had gardening and cooking, Wednesdays was just endless 'lift' music, Thursdays was comedy again and Fridays was a drama show. This was all until five, when there was 'drivetime' which would go on for two hours barring special events, after which the schedule changed daily again. Mondays was Jazz, Tuesdays was, again, comedy, Wednesdays was drama, Thursdays was Country Music and Fridays was 'Friday Night is Music Night', where an orchestra played all sorts of things, from film soundtracks to orchestral pieces to versions of modern songs.
And on the weekends?
You're not bored yet? Well, Saturday was mostly devoted to more talk shows and sketches, while Sunday mornings was a church service broadcast to the country (he pulls a disapproving face) and Sunday afternoons was more music. On all days the news was every hour, while every half-hour was some tip or advice for survival - how to purify water, reminders that Zeds couldn't be negotiated with, the sort of barricade that would or wouldn't work against a Zed... you wouldn't believe how many people thought nothing more than an electrified fence would stop a horde coming at you.
How did you power the radio all day?
With the bicycle rigged up to produce electricity, like I told you. The person on 'watch' would cycle for about an half-hour, which built up enough power in the battery to last another quarter hour running the radio, or ten minutes if it was the radio and the freezer. The person would then go around the Castle, make sure everything was tickety-boo and then keep cycling. We exercised, it kept us awake during the night shift... It was a really good idea we had.
Sounds like you had a good time-
Well, not entirely. I mean, sure we survived, and when we got out we weren't as thin and malnourished as a lot of other people who had holed up in castles were, but we weren't living the high life, not compared to Windsor or Beaumaris, or that Disney-like castle in France. We had one square meal a day, with a small something, maybe a scrap of homemade bread, for breakfast and the meal itself as night was drawing in. We had disease outbreaks, Alice's second child was a miscarriage, the old woman who was a massive anti-immigration bigot before the war, but was always talking to Ago while under siege, died for no apparent reason. A lot of people we picked up, from ships or who had turned up by land, fighting their way through our moat, died for no obvious reason. It was winter that saved us, it gave us a task to plan for for the rest of the year, kept us busy when we would have been bored and helped distract us from the petty squabbles that inevitably appeared.
What kind of petty squabbles?
Oh, everything and anything. What colour to paint the table; religion; how long our supplies will last; what to say to any ships we got talking to... It was kind of fun because I did my best to keep out of it, and I just watched everyone else spit at each other over whether carrots or potatoes were better to plant. I often played chess with Ago at these times - he kept out of the arguments as well. Often, when we were planning where to go come the first frost, we'd all end up in shouting matches.
We had a system of leaving the Castle on the second day of there being frost on the ground when we wake up, because then the Zeds in the moat were frozen, but would defrost by the afternoon. On the day of the first frost we all prepared our gear and made ourselves packed lunches. On the second day, we'd all go out in two groups, leaving a third group behind in the castle. They'd occupy themselves with caving in the heads of the frozen Zeds and doing repairs or fitting stuff onto the outside of the building - things we couldn't do while the Zeds were awake. Each group that went out - we always called them the 'A-team' and the 'B-team', had supplies to last about a week and each person hauled a wheelbarrow or wagon or...something. We'd walk until we noticed the frost was starting to clear, then find ourselves an abandoned house and fortify it. That house would then become our temporary warehouse. every day after that, except for Christmas day, we'd go out in smaller teams from the houses and pick up whatever we could find that was on our list or we thought would be useful - food mainly, but lots of other stuff like wood or blankets or clothes.
What happened on Christmas day?
We'd all head back to the Castle on Christmas Eve, A-team and B-team each pulling our own Christmas tree, as well as whatever Christmas decorations we scavenged and some food for the feast. C-team, who were the ones left at the Castle, would choose which of the two Christmas Trees were better, and that one we erected in the main room just behind the doors. By then, of course, the frost or snow was all day so there were very little active Zeds. We'd decorate the tree and the rest of the castle, still using the bicycle to power the Christmas lights as the freezer could be turned off - we put the food to be frozen in buckets of water outside. The next day we'd each open our presents, then have a feast in the evening, while listening to the BBC Christmas broadcast on the Radio. There was the Queens' Speech at one-o-clock on Christmas day, then all sorts of good shows, as well as a church service in the morning. The next day, A-team and B-team would go back out to keep scavenging, often we found a new house to fortify as we'd picked clean the area around our first fortified house already.
Were there any problems with the winter months?
Hell, yes. In the last few years before we were freed we were finding it very difficult to find anything useful anywhere near our area, which meant we had to stray further afield - sometimes by up to three days' walk. We often encountered scavenging groups - more so in the later years as we went further, and those meetings were varied. Sometimes the other group would run away, sometimes we would if we were vastly outnumbered - we tried not to take too many chances. There was fighting on occasion, and that was scary at best.
Can you describe one of these fights?
Yes, I suppose. I was in the B-team in the second year, and Rob was in command - we all called him 'Sergeant'. We were in a small town near here called Freshwater, and had just picked clean a supermarket that was bizarrely untouched. we were all leaving, pulling our stuff, when down the road we saw another group of people about the same size as our group walking up the road towards us, pulling and pushing their own stuff. Rob told us to push our trolleys back into the supermarket and get our weapons out - out of a group of eight of us we had two shotguns, an air rifle, I had a bow and several arrows which I had made myself, and the other four had axes and swords. We all had shields - of the kind you saw in my cupboard, you know, round with the boss in the middle. We all got our gear out, and armored ourselves with the usual kit - chain mail, biking gear, gloves, that kind of thing. We held our weapons in a non-aggressive way, slung on our belts or over our backs, so that when they noticed us they knew we weren't going to kill them out of hand. As it turned out, that's what they were planning. They stopped when they saw us, seemed to have a quick conversation and then started gearing up themselves. That's when Rob told us to get into the supermarket. We went in and then formed a barricade - we completely blocked one exit with several shelves and the other was barricaded, so they'd come in and we'd have a clear field of fire, while not exposing ourselves.
(As he is talking, he visually becomes more animated so that the mildly tempered man I was talking to becomes slightly more feral)
They were walking towards the supermarket as we were doing this, so that by the time we were pointing everything we had at them they had reached the car park. There were nine of them, and they all seemed to take orders from someone they called 'chief', They had one more gun than we did, though they didn't have shields or a barricade - our shields were all in the barricade. One of them fired a shot at us before even trying to talk, and it hit my shield - it was obviously an air rifle as there was no bang and the pellet didn't go through. Rob, who had the one shotgun, fired and took out one of them, and then all hell broke loose. From what I can remember, they all tried to charge us through the door and then hack us down once inside, while the ones with the guns killed our guns. I shot my bow and got nearly always perfect headshots - I had practiced on Zeds so I was pretty good. Then again, so was everyone else there that day. We put down their charge, and then we just traded shots for about half an hour before they yelled at us that they were going to leave now, and would come back the next day with more people so we'd better get out while we had the chance. We waited another half hour, then ran out screaming with shields up in case it was an ambush. They'd gone. We scarpered ourselves, we didn't want to be wiped out when they returned and the frost was clearing, as we were walking back to our base I saw several partially defrosted Zeds, their heads snapping but otherwise stuck to the floor.
(At this point a small boy comes running into the room wearing a school uniform. He stops dead at the sight of me. Geoff apologises, invites me to listen to the other cassette recordings and then leaves with his Son. Geoff checks on me every half hour – by the time I'm finished it has gone dark outside. He escorts me to the door and promises that we will meet the next day)
