IC: Leanne's Diary

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This is the diary and assorted notes kept by Leanne Hayes, of the events surrounding Mawsley and the fate of the survivors.

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Moleskine is the legendary notebook that the European artists and intellectuals who made twentieth-century culture used: from Henri Matisse to the turn-of-the-century Parisian avant-garde, from Louis Férdinand Céline to Ernest Hemingway. Writer-traveler Bruce Chatwin picked up this tradition and made it famous.

January 2008

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

• To keep up my diary this year.
• To make new friends in Northamptonshire & to keep up with my old friends back home
• To get more driving lessons, to pass my driving test
• Get a car
• Write my first novel
• To only ever get A's for all of my coursework
• New boyfriend
• Learn guitar
• Improve on Sax
• Travel
• Research my next career moves
• Keep Charlotte from telling mum I smoke
• Get my hair bobbed when its grown long enough

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train" - Oscar Wilde

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This is my new school.
http://www.brookehouse.com/

Its not exactly what I had in mind, but its not as if I have any say in the matter. Am I going to be the only non-international student there? Are they going to be talking all different languages? Why couldn't I have gone to Orpington College, which has really good Arts course departments. I'm only allowed to take 3 A level subjects and have chosen History, English and Photography/Graphics. Luckily this fits with the timetable. I think the guy at the school wanted me to do something like law or business studies instead - like its any of his business what I do with my life! I think the place is going to be dreary and immensely tiresome.

I wonder what sharing a house with Charlie will be like? Will she tell mum & dad about me smoking and having friends over? I'll have to give back her black T shirt I sort of borrowed. At least I won't have mum & dad breathing down my neck about doing homework, getting back late from clubbing and all the things I ought to be doing.

Mawsley is only a little village apparently. Is there ANYTHING to do around there? What a bore.

"Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out" - Oscar Wilde

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Mawsley is dead. They haven't even finished building all the houses. I've moved my stuff in and mum & dad have left. Charlie is out teaching tonight and its really quiet here. I think I just saw some tumbleweed blowing down the street. Tomorrow is my first day at Brooke House. It sounds like an Institution! The sooner I pass my test and get my own car the better.

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught" - Oscar Wilde

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Brooke House isn't quite so bad as I was expecting. I wasn't the only one starting new who didn't know anyone and I'm making friends. My courses are quite cool. I'm just worried I should be on a different Art course. I got chatting to a girl called Chesca in my Photography/Graphics class and it turns out she lives in Mawsley! I'm meeting up with her later after school and I can check out the village some more.

Charlotte is teaching dance, which is satisfaisant , but I don't think she's doing the right thing being stuck in Mawsley. Why isn't she in London? I think my room is better than hers, so we're both happy. She also smokes far more heavily than I do, so we've got a pact. I'm going to enjoy having this place to ourselves without mum & dad around.

"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune... to lose both seems like carelessness" - Oscar Wilde

I'm going to share a taxi ride with Chesca into school in the mornings. She lives in the same street as me. She said the company they're using isn't that reliable and Charlie told her that the guy next door drives a cab so we're going to talk to him. I might also ask him about the pipe thing on the side of our house that's coming off and if its somethig we should be worrying about.

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I met up with Becca at the weekend and we spent the day in London going EVERYWHERE! I got a blue T shirt at Camden Lock where this stall-holder guy was giving the Beckster a hard time about her Bob Marley T shirt, saying he bet she didn't even know who Bob Marley was and when was she born?, and we're like "Excuse me? Did we ask for your opinion?" I told him how her dad worked for Island records - which he doesn't - he works for a bank, but it shut him up. He was pretty impressed and quite decent after that and gave us some discounts and gig flyers. Then we went off to Pizza Express and got served in a bar in Covent Garden.

I found a great small shop around Covent Garden that had the coolest ever brown leather jacket. It was expensive so I had to break into some of the money I put away for driving lessons to get it. I also got some Mac lipstick called 'Rage', a dark electric blue eye-shadow and a Bourjois Suivez Mon Regard eyeshadow. Its more expensive than no. 17 but its classier. The girl on the counter for Borjois had red and flame orange layers in her brown hair dyed red that looked really good. I got Charlotte the latest copy of 'The Stage' because you can't buy the less usual, vitally important newspapers & magazines in the village.

Beccs promises to be in touch regularly and we talked about going clubbing in the not too distant.

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Mum thinks its stupid doing Photography and wanted me to do French, but I don't care. I'm really glad I opted for Photography & Graphics instead of Art - its way cooler. We do the history of Photography and even touched on film history today. Suki says all they're doing in art class is drawing bowls of fruit, which we did at GCSE.

Our first photography homework is to take pictures of movement. I was thinking of taking some photos of Mikey doing stunts on his bike, but Chesca didn't seem too impressed by that idea. I guess wheels are a bit predictable so I'm now using motion, speed and time as a symbol of the frantic pace of our lives in our desperate journey from the cradle to the grave. I've taken some photographs of the food-mixer, Dyson, digital alarm clock and toilet flushing which I'm going to montage to evoke these themes. I'm really pleased with the results so far.

I'm getting tired of 'Tired of Hanging around' jumping on tracks 1,2 & 3. I think somebody used it as a drinks mat at some time. I wanted to burn a copy of it for Kaja up the road. She was looking at me blankly when I was talking about 'The Zutons'. She's a nice enough girl but I honestly think she lived on the moon before coming to Mawsley.

I've been seeing Charlotte in a whole new light since moving here. She's more laid back than she was at home before going off to Roehampton - not acting so prim & pefect. She swears a lot more here out of earshot of mum & dad. She smokes openly, so I can as well and she burns joss sticks. She also put a few bottles of wine in the supermarket trolley for us to drink at the weekend. She's met someone but I haven't seen him yet. I think she must like him a lot. She's got out the Estee Lauder bath oil, so she's probably meeting up with him. Its nice getting to spend time chatting together more, the way we did when we were younger. She says its nice having company in the house. I got back two of my CD's I didn't even realise she had. We had a laugh singing & dancing along to golden oldies like 'Madonna's Greatest' and 'Republica' while we cooked. I can wack up the volume on the music now we have a place to ourselves. I've had 'get into the groove' and 'Ready to Go' stuck going around in my head ever since.

I want to go out on Friday night and I'll bet noone's available.

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I got to see Charlie's boyfriend last night and he stayed over! His name is Frederico, he's Italian & he's very good looking. He is also A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. I applaud her for her excellent choice. I kept out of the way to give them space but I passed him on the landing at 3 in the morning & he wasn't wearing very much.

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Tonight I came upstairs and found Charlie was really upset and crying. Frederico didn't contact her at all after staying over - no visit, phone calls, text messages or anything. He's a pig. He's just slept with her and dumped her when he got what he wanted. She's been checking her mobile all day and got all jumpy when one of my friends phoned.

We opened some bottles of wine and she told me about it. Charlie smoked a joint in front of me. I joined her and she didn't say anything about it. I thought could smell it in the house before but I wasn't sure if it was her, a visitor or just the incense.

Hopefully Charlotte will cold shoulder him for this and show him that he doesn't matter to her. I shall give him the brush off if he ever calls around here again. I am NEVER going to let any guy get the better of me. I don't need a man in my life dragging me down. They're just a waste of time and a cause of heartache - who needs it?

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Now Charlotte knows I know about the wacky baccy, she's smoking it a lot more around the house, which I don't mind. I don't have to worry so much about what she'll say about what me or any of my friends might do. I'm wondering now though how much she smokes and how often. I think she must get it from a creepy guy up the road called Jarvis that she visits. I can't understand how she got to know him in the first place. I'm paying more attention to her trips up the road now.

Maybe she's just smoking more because of Freddy. What a stupid Scooby Doo name! He's considerably sunk in my estimation. In fact, I don't think he was a good choice anyway. It turns out he's only a sci-fi writer - not a proper author. He's not so handsome as I first thought either. His fashion sense is really passe. She's far better than him. He's not in her league. Charlie could have any guy she wanted. I can't believe he had the audacity to parade around in our house at three in the morning in his underpants as if he owned the place!

I don't know who he thinks he's messing with. Noone treats a Lawrence like this and gets away with it.

"On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure." - Oscar Wilde

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This morning Charlotte and I were invited over to Chesca's house for a drinks party, for her mother's birthday. I very much approve of their observance of this form of gathering as a social custom.

Chesca's mother is wheeelchair-bound, but I don't like to ask why. Chesca usually comes around to our house rather than the other way around. I think her mum gets at her quite a lot, or maybe its only when I'm there. Her father is a doctor working in Mawsley.

I could NOT believe it. Just after we'd arrived as Chesca was fixing us drinks we noticed that Frederico was there. Charlie didn't realise that he lived so near to us. Fortunately we had to pop back to our house as we'd forgotten to bring over the card we had for Chesca's mother. When we got back and we were chatting around the kitchen Charlie was putting on some perfume and accidentally sprayed it over one of the dishes bought by Frederico apparently. Mr Hudson got the wrong idea and thought she'd done it on purpose. It was Soooo embarassing. Not quite so embarrassing as that poor klutz Frederico, who managed to spill lasagne on his lap! What an idiot! What was he even doing there? What a nerve! Some busy-body woman I don't even know was asking me about Charlie being upset. Charlie didn't know why she was so interested in Freddy in the first place. Charlie and Freddy had a talk and it turned out that there'd been a misunderstanding & he hadn't been able to get in touch with her for some or other reasons - something about the wrong phone number and being away. At least that's what he was claiming. I don't know what to think. I still don't understand why he couldn't have got in touch some way at some point if he just lives down the road. They've made their peace and so I suppose we shall forgive the boy.

When Freddy was talking to his London Publisher I think Jarvis may have been up to something. Perhaps he was taking drugs in the toilet - who knows?

Frederico wound up coming back to our place and later we went on to the centre where Charlie was teaching a dance class. I didn't bother doing it as we'd had some drinks earlier and I was a little tired. I chatted to Kaja who was suspiciously curious about Freddy and who he as seeing. Speaking of suspicious, some guy was hanging out on a street corner near where we live for some reason, so I told Charlie not to walk home alone, but of course Freddy & Charlie had made up by then and he escorted her back to our house anyway. I also saw the guy around the front of our house and he seemed to be looking at our house - creepy! Especially the way he just stood stock still when I walked past him on the way home. It was definitely the same tall guy in combat trousers and one of those middle Eastern Jasser Arafat tea-towel scarves.

There was a noise from where we keep the dustbins in the night, so I went to check it out. I could see Mr Hudson from next door checking it out and I saw a figure leaving the alleyway after he'd taken a quick look. It wasn't his shadow. There was a noise like foxes but it seemed pretty suspect. There was a car pulling off Jarvis's drive and he was up. Also our back door was open. I checked the house out downstairs with a kitchen knife in hand and me and Mr Hudson checked over the gardens but we didn't see anyone. I woke up Charlie and Freddie and they helped check things out. Maybe it was an opportunist burglary attempt or maybe Charlie just forgot to lock up properly. She did have other things on her mind. Someone's garden statue turned up in the wrong garden. It was the garden of the woman that spoke to me with the funny name - Roshan??)

I think maybe Jarvis is attracting some dodgy characaters to our street, maybe looking to steal things to fund their drug habits.

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Gloria? No...Stella sat back with a glass of champagne in hand regarding Frank with some amusement. She wore a a long pale blue satin dress with elegant,impossibly high heels. her skin flawless and her diamond choker - no, her diamond earrings shone in Lalique lamp-light like a hypnotist's mesmerising charm, and it seemed he was indeed hypnotised by her beauty. He thought, like an ice maiden - like a beautiful statue. scratch that! untouchable, statuesque and too good for him.

But he dared not hope that she cared for him as he did for her. worshipped her. She was unnattainable, unfathomable in her mysterious depths. (Note to self -Like Grace Kelly in Philadelphia Story)

Cat The white cat Rameses, wearing a diamond collar from Tiffanies jumped down from the chez longue and walked across to her sister Ashley, who was on the moon-lit balcony deep in conversation with Ryan Kane, an American millionnaire. .

(Ashley wears her black hair in a bob and maybe a white tailored trouser suit? or a white dress?

The party was beginning to break up. It had been an amusing evening. The beautiful Russian dancerNikitta? Katya Lopokova who had defected from the Eastern bloc had an interest in Frank, but he had eyes only for Stella.

Carlotta, the gifted art photographer, mixed manhattans and Martini's in the drawing room. Frank told Stella of the book he was currently working on and conversation drifted towards other topics.

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I left off writing in this diary because .. because everything has changed. There hasn't been any time to write, even though there has been much to write about. Its only now that I can sit down to do this and I'm somewhat concerned that others may get curious about what I will say, about what they're going through and what I think. So it is that I find myself climbing up a ladder to a hayloft in some kind of barn or granary to write out of sight in privacy behind some hay bales! Extraordinary you must think reader, whoever you are. How did I come to be here when not so long ago my entries concerned college,music, schoolwork and shopping trips into London.

How is it that everything is so different now?

I think some of the others will think I have gone off to be alone to cry or to sulk. Let them think what they like - and what sort of a diary should I write now? I think that I should keep up a diary. Perhaps it'll help me keep my sanity. Perhaps it will be an important record of everything that has happened and the precise order and time-frame of events that as time passes may become confused in our memories. Yes, over time we may all remember things slightly differently and this is very important. Should I use this diary to vent about trivial everyday frustrations as a true diarist might, or stick to a more formal account in case it really is one day read by someone other than myself. I shouldn't want anyone I knew reading it. Who does anybody really keep a diary for anyway except oneself? Then again, if anything were to happen to me (or even if I were careless about hiding it) Charlotte might read it. Perhaps Mum and Dad are alive and they might one day read it. I couldn't write the sort of diary that would be good enough for them to read. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. I just wanted to relieve the tension and its nice to have some space to oneself for just a little while. I don't want them to see me upset. Besides - it wouldn't be good for Mikey's mum, Nikos, Chesca and Freddy to see me upset. I have to be strong for them. Anyway, I won't have certain others seeing me upset!

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Well perhaps I should begin by describing everthing that has happened since my last entry. So much has happened that it would take some time and I shouldn't be away too long because I need to take my turn watching over Elsie and Charlie and the baby. At times the baby is getting more attention than Elsie who also needs someone close by and needs it more than a healthy, robust two year old, frankly.

I lived in a recently built small village called Mawsley. It was more of a glorified housing estate really. Something really terrible has happened. We can't make sense of it because it doesn't really fully fit any theory that we can come up with. It's as strange as the plot of some post Apocalypse or zombie film or novel. It even sounded like a computer game plot that Bobby (Ken Hudson's son) described to us.

It seems that we are a small band of survivors of an unrecogniseable, extraordinary 'epidemic', if that's what it is. Unlikely as it sounds, evidence suggests that it is nationwide and that the country has fallen to complete chaos. Common sense suggests it may be worldwide, or that Britain has been deliberately isolated.

The people that I am with all lived on the same street and did not contract this disease, condition, or however you would term it. Some occupants in other houses near to ours also seemed free from it. Some people, like Paula and her family and the family Kaja au pair's for wanted to barricade themselves into their homes and another, - Jarvis - fled the area. They were all normal. Well, if you can call Jarvis 'normal' in the first place. The man is a dangerous psychopath. However, one of our other neighbours called Darren turned out to be infected and attacked us.

You see, this epidemic seems to make people murderously violent for no apparent reason. They differ from Jarvis however. They don't talk, they don't come out into the daylight, and cancerous growths were seen on a dead body left lying in the road. Sound and artificial lights attract them, but they don't seem to be 'firing on all cylinders', so maybe like Jarvis after all. They are somewhat like zombies from a horror movie but they are not the same. They aren't dead for one thing. They aren't cannibalistic as far as we know. We haven't seen them eat or drink anything, but of course its not safe to be anywhere near them. They attack anyone who comes to their attention and this can quickly become a mob attack, in the same way as a group of animals may go for the same - body as prey. They seem to drift together like different types of birds in a garden do, rather than working as an organised pack. When without stimuli they meander around aimlessly. They look exactly like regular people, but perhaps someone mad escaped from some local lunatic asylum and on drugs, to give a rough idea. There is no lunatic asylum where we are to my knowledge. There are many of them, and they look like they were once normal regular people of different ages.

Ken Hudson, my former next door neighbour was very lucky to escape a mob attack like that before we knew what was happening, when the world still seemed normal.

When our group gathered at Chesca's house opposite mine, we all had to leave when the mob attacked it. That came about because we rescued Paula from a mob attack. Not long after we saved her life Jarvis shot her in the head in cold blood. There was nothing wrong with her. She wasn't infected.

I wish Paula was with us now and she should have been. They killed her baby. They killed her husband and she saw it all.

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There is no electricity. The water supply failed at Chesca's house and nobody came to reconnect either. We weren't getting national radio stations such as the BBC stations. We're not picking up any stations at all at home or abroad. Nobody is using our nearest motorway. There are no cars on the road except ours. We saw a crashed helicopter left abandoned in a field. We haven't seen any aeroplanes or helicopters in the air. The hospital wasn't a functioning emergency centre. The only emergency services we've seen is a borrowed ambulance and Chesca's father, Dr. Matthew Hayes, who happens to be one of our neighbours. Our nearest towns and villages were deserted, and we daren't risk run-ins with the infected people who could have been lurking inside some of the buildings.

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This afternoon finds me outside our temporary barn home, sitting on the ground leaning against its corrugated metal walls. There's nothing right here and now to suggest the world is any different. I can pretend that everything fine while nobody else is around to remind me. It’s so quiet! There's no bird-song and no distant drone of traffic. All I can hear is someone wandering around around the corner of the building which I'm hoping is just Nikos.

Nothing adds up at all. If it was a nuclear attack I don’t think the sky would look so very different a considerable distance away. We wouldn’t necessarily see any mushroom cloud or explosion. There might be signs of dust, smoke or a smell in the air within so many miles of a disaster such as at a power plant or a military attack. If somewhere is a prime target for attack we really DON’T want to be getting too close to it to see! That would be major cities, key military stations, communications like the BBC and nuclear power stations.

Maybe, just maybe there are radio and TV broadcasts going on in other countries and even this country, but whatever it is that allows us to pick up on the frequencies and signals is trashed such as a satellite in space. But there would be many ways for messages to be relayed surely?

One single satellite failing or one main UK communications silence. Could a localised or national radio black-out be caused by the military attack action or a natural disaster, like something happening in the atmosphere around our planet interfering with the satellites and frequencies? I am not a Physicist. Freddy might know as he’s a sci-fi writer. Maybe this isn’t a man-made disaster but something like a giant meteorite hitting the earth, like in that film with Morgan Freeman. Maybe some people like the military knew it was coming. But that doesn’t explain why Stoneyfields residents are OK and not other people. Is there something odd to protect Stoneyfields, in its Geology or Geo-Physics, or nearby power and signals stations? If so we wouldn’t be the only survivors as other people would live in areas with similar features. I can’t believe we are the only survivors. There must be more out there and maybe Mum, Dad and sis are OK.

But wouldn’t someone in our street have heard some kind of forewarning on the news? Wouldn’t the TV stations and radio stations have kept on much longer? Of course they would. This can’t be like nuclear radiation because people in Stoneyfields haven’t been shut in whilst other people were outdoors. In any case I don’t think that that would have protected us from the worst of it. Why would people be acting like zombie’s?? Could something be interfering with their brains to alter their behaviour? Why not us too? At first I thought we could have been part of some military experiment gone wrong, like …what do they call it in medical research? …the group of test subjects that are normal and who get the placebo, or even the drug that actually works?! That accounts for soldier-guy and his friends, and Chesca’s investigations about the woods. What about the red haired guy? He doesn’t seem to be one of them now. When he turned up he caused weird effects and Charlie’s baby got older. Were there two military groups acting against each other? Maybe one lot were terrorists and the others counter terrorists? Perhaps the terrorists succeeded in a massive attack on Britain. But that just doesn’t work. If that had happened what’s keeping the rest of Europe and the world from sending aid and rescue? Even if it was dangerous because of Bio-Hazards, they would surely try to drop food supplies, information and so forth. We’d have radio signals from the rest of the world. They would try to get communications back on early. Maybe there is aid going to other areas? Perhaps we should keep trying radio and power once in a while to see if it’s come back to us.

***

My face is itching where Bobby cut me with a knife. I don’t want to scratch it or it will bleed and scar worse if it takes longer to heal. I’m going to have a scarred face forever because of him! I can’t even get cosmetic surgery to get rid of it. I wonder if Dr Hayes has any creams to reduce scarring. I wonder if the moisturiser I got Charlie to avoid stretch marks would help or sting?

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I should say something about who we are.

Francesca Hayes, (Chesca) lived across the road from me in Stoneyfields and we got on really well and hang out together, which is just as well since we share - I mean, shared lifts into college and did a fair few of the same classes. She's been my closest friend since my recent move to Mawsley. She was actually younger than her year-group and put forward because she's so bright. Chesca's not just academically bright, she's also smart in other ways - perhaps she's gifted. Her dad's a doctor and her mother is a lawyer, so perhaps that's where she gets it from. I must say, I feel quite stupid next to her sometimes, which I am not. She's not full of herself though. She has a lot to contend with and was just glad to get time away from her family when she could. Chesca's one of the people here that I can rely upon the most and who's company will never grate.

Chesca's always had problems with her mother, but since this crisis their relationship seems to have changed. They're both smart enough to put aside their differences while we need to concentrate our efforts on making plans for our survival as a group and making sense of what is happening. You can see how they are alike when they're discussing this together. They're both detached on the outside and hide their emotions. One thing I'll say for Chesca's mother, I appreciate the way that she's coolly logical and practical in a crisis situation.

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I am indebted to Dr. Hayes for saving Charlie’s life and keeping her alive. I know that she’s not out of the woods yet. It’s a very good thing we took the ambulance, which has helped so much. He’s a General Practitioner and not a Gynaecologist, but I discovered that he does have what I take to be Gynaecology ad Obstetrics or Gynaecology qualifications after his name –something ending -COG ?? Bless you for choosing to do that. It’s saved my sister’s life.

He’s a nice guy and much friendlier than Mrs Hayes. He’s always running around his wife (Lillian) dutifully, never complaining about her. Perhaps he should put his foot down with her and not take it. Perhaps he should have done years ago!

I'm so sick of the way certain people around here talk about the kids and bracket myself and Chesca in with the under 15's!! We are apparently to be protected and patronised at all times. Oshan is forever doing this, and Mrs Hayes, and the soldier-guy (whatever his name is) are also guilty of it from time to time. It's quite ridiculous! Why, in some countries actual children younger than Nikos fight as soldiers in foreign wars and go out to work to support the family. We’re the only people left and everyone who is fit and well needs to contribute for us to survive. Anyone can see that Chesca is twice as smart and of twice more use to the group than any of the adults We are just as capable and fit as anyone else here.

Nikos, Mikey and Bobby may be younger than us but they’ve all been keen to help and put a brave face on things and not buckled under. Bobby is an immature idiot, but he means to be helpful and strong. He just gets it all wrong. Mikey saved my life and he’s always been ready to help, brave and to take risks. I haven’t even seen him fighting with Chesca.

I suppose really they’re coping better than me. I should be doing more. I feel so powerless right now. I want to go out there and do something, but what? It’s dangerous to go alone back to our houses for more food and drink and the others would say it’s a bad idea. Mikey would want to come with us and people would raise objections. It’d probably upset Amynta. I could make weapons out of wood, or get the boys doing that with me, but then Bobby would probably wind up accidentally stabbing himself or something… We could go looking for useful bits of equipment around the place outside we could use for something.

I can’t do a thing for Charlie right now, except keep looking in on her, bringing the baby over to be beside her and seeing that the baby’s being fed and supervised by someone. Chesca’s been helping a lot because she knows how I feel about this baby. I’ll take care of it for Charlie’s sake, - Of course I'd raise it if anything ever happened to Charlie - but I wish she’d never had it. Charlie’s all I’ve got left of my family and pregnancy with this baby has nearly killed her twice now. It’s not natural and I’m not even sure she conceived it in the first place. She swore blind to me that she hadn’t slept with anyone. However, the pregnancy was been unnaturally fast, so I suppose that she must have and I hope to God it’s Freddy’s.

I wondered the other day about whether Oshan or Amy might bond too closely with the baby spending so much time with it. Amy's just lost her husband and Oshan lost her own baby. But that's uncharitable and really mean of me. There's no cause to worry as they're all being very good with her, kind and helpful. I'd much rather they watched over the baby right now. Anyway, they'll know more about baby care.
Charlie's got to wake up sooner or later. I think the rest must help if her body's healing but I don't really know.

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Freddy has been very quiet today. I never know what he’s thinking. It must be very hard for him and he is always so gentlemanly. I think Charlie chose very wisely. He has been at Charlie’s side and helping with the baby. Everyone is quieter than normal when it comes to how they’re feeling inside. We are vocal when it comes to debating what is to be done. Mind you, various people are recovering from wounds. I nearly got to talk to Freddy the other day, …but then Oshan came over.

Mr. Hudson has been badly hurt in different incidents and continues to do all he can whenever we take on anything dangerous. I think that the others are inclined to forget just how badly he’s been hurt because he looks strong and is always so dependable. I don’t know how serious his injuries are but they looked awful. He’s always one of the first they turn to when a strong man is needed, but the other night he looked a bit irritated when no one was asking him what he thought about some plan being discussed.

Amynta is coping very well, all things considered. We sat together and she plaited my hair today. Nikos came and sat with us. I like Amynta very much. She was lovely to me before this all happened. I like to be a part of their family for the afternoon. Mikey is still being very cold towards her, blaming her to cope with his grief. It must hurt her a lot, even though I’m sure she understands.

Elsie is struggling with her breathing and must lie very still and quietly. I’ve been sitting with her and checking up on her at regular intervals and others are doing that too. I feel so sorry for her. She’s too weak to sit up and eat and drink properly.

I don’t really understand why soldier-boy shot her. I think he’s just a bit dim-witted to be honest. I suppose that that makes him ideal for the military. He’s always talking about just following orders as if he doesn’t have a mind of his own. I guess that’s why we’re being nice to him despite what he did to Elsie. I haven’t noticed him apologising or showing any special interest in her well-being and she’s quite obviously an old lady. He mistook us for these zombie people or some imagined threat. The others feel that it’s good to have a sniper soldier on our side. I’m not convinced we need another armed and dangerously moronic and annoying male, but he doesn’t have a home to go to now that there’s no army for him to fight in. My Philosophy tutor Ms. Phipps would have said this is why they didn’t allow men at Greenham Common when she was there.

***

Oshan has been driving me CRAZY!! I know that she only means to be helpful and keeping busy is probably her way of coping. But still she’s always intercepting whatever I’m doing and pushing me out of the picture. When Charlie first fell ill and needed to be rushed to hospital I was taking care of her when Oshan completely took over and side-lined me. Charlie ended up thinking I didn’t care because of Oshan and we had a big row. I was getting on really well with my sister and we were becoming close again before she came along. I assisted Dr. Hayes when he treated and operated on Charlie. Then Oshan turns up and acts like I wasn’t involved at all.
She claims to be some kind of medical doctor, but I don’t see how she can be any more than a low-level nurse at best. It takes years to train as a proper doctor. She had to have done her Degree studies in lame shrink subjects – and now she thinks she knows everything about people.

Now my sister’s probably going to die and she’ll die believing that her sister’s an uncaring bitch who’s neglected her. But hey, that’s OK because Oshan will look like such a pillar of strength and a dear friend to someone she’s only known for a few weeks. She’ll totally try to push me out of the way.

She always shows up whenever I want to talk to anyone privately and makes it so I can’t talk to them, or they misunderstand me and get mad at me.When I offer any suggestion she’ll talk down to me. When I was trying to help anyone or do anything I turn around for just a moment and the next thing I know Oshan is taking over and pushing me out. For instance, when I was helping Amynta after I’d rescued her. I turn around for just one second and Oshan is taking over again! She’s so age-ist! If I happen to be with one or two other people who are ‘adults’ she’ll make plans with them and completely cut me out or reject what I say in a belittling fashion. She whispers in corners with Matt and some of the others to further keep those of us she thinks of as ‘the kids’out of the picture. She’s so patronising to me. She treats me as though I were a 12 year old!

[nemarsde]

Yesterday was an extraordinary and miserable day. A few of us went into the underground military place ‘soldier-boy’ had talked about – me, Cheskca, Mr Hudson, Bobby and Frederico – fortunately not any of the people I wanted a break from. I was glad to get away from the barn. When we got there we could hear a radio playing, so we were a bit worried that we might get attacked by zombie-people, or soldiers thinking that we were dangerous. What we found was a man in the process of hanging himself and some dead bodies. I dived in and helped to cut him down. Just a few moments later and we’d have been too late to save him! When he was able to talk again he explained about what had happened to the others. I gathered up useful information and equipment and so did Chesca. However some things he said didn’t sound right and we smelt a rat right away. He was claiming to be some kind of suit and ignorant about things and it was clear he wasn’t levelling with us. When we got him back to the barn and after he’d had some time to recover he started telling us more about who he was and what he knew. His name is Daniel. e was reluctant at first but after a while he wouldn’t stop talking. He obviously wasn’t just some bureaucrat. He was some kind of an expert in very theoretical Astro-Physics and that showed in the way he was poor at putting things in layman’s terms. He was clearly used to discussing the subject only with other specialist experts. It seemed he’d spent a very long time studying the science of what was happening in the world. He had fascinating theories that might explain it, although we were all having trouble getting our heads around what he was saying. This guy’s really useful, except that according to him, we’re trapped in a limited area in and around Mawsley by that force-field wall we saw and its closing in and going to kill us all pretty soon. He even suggested that we might travel through some inter-dimensional rift and suffer a fate worse than death. Its all to do with black hole theories. The zombie like people we see are like distorted shadows of our own world s if another version of our reality. we are like a pocket of resistance that remains unaeffected for the time being, but things are unstable and rapidly worsening. That’s what he believes and he’s an expert. If anyone has any bright ideas to save us all it'll be this guy or Frederico, with his extensive knowledge of science fiction. Or Maybe we can just be content in the knowledge that we understood what killed us for a short while before our deaths. He said that the village of Mawsley had disappeared twice before in history. He talked about the red haired man as if he were some inter-dimensional traveller and harbinger of disaster – like some kind of portent of evil. I tried to follow everything he as saying but he went on and on and I couldn’t follow it all - and then he was rude to me. I know that he was really stressed and had tried to hang himself – but I’d just had enough of listening to him anymore. All this talk is theoretical. He admits he doesn’t really know anything for sure and that these are just theories. I hope he’s wrong.

Jarvis came back. We shall all have to watch our backs now. I’m keeping my eyes on him. He said that he could only travel so far and then his way was blocked by this force-field like wall and he’d had to turn back.

***

Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass

"....You know very well you're not real."
"I am real!" said Alice, and began to cry.
"You won't make yourself a bit realer by crying," Tweedledee remarked: "there's nothing to cry about."
"If I wasn't real," Alice sad - half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous - "I shouldn't be able to cry."
"I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?"

***

Charlie woke up and when I tried to help everyone else came over and she started having a go at me when all I ws doing was trying to help. She doesn't realise how bad her health's been and how she's been operated on. She shouldn't be walking around or taking the weight of a heavy baby. I HAVE been looking after her and doing all I could! Also, Else's really struggling to breathe. That's all I meant by the cigarette smoke. I'm sure it wouldn't kill Charlie or Lucy to breathe in the smoke of just a few cigarettes. I wouldn't begrudge it to Charlie Charlie further away from Elsie.

I gave her some space and left Oshan, Freddy, Dr Hayes and the others to it. When I went outside everybody else suddenly wanted to follw me out! You can't get a moment's peace around here! (At least Mr. Hudson still has quite a few cigarettes.) Oshan was probably thinking of coming over, but I just gave her a look and walked off, so she thought the better of it.

Daniel (the crazy Astro-Physicist) attacked Mikey, Oshan and Jarvis, stole a gun from jarvis and drove away with the truck! Mikey had disappeared off an when we went looking for him he was found unconscious in the latrines area. Oshan saw Daniel creep up on Jarvis and use some expert martial Arts manoevre, first on Jarvis and then on her, injuring her wrist. He knocked both Mikey and Jarvis out stone cold! Mikey and Jarvis are OK, but Oshan's wrist is hurt.

Mr. Hudson thinks that Daniel took something with him stowed in racking underneath the barn, or at least looked there. Mr. I-need-anger-management couldn't stand it that someone took him unawares and beat him in a fight. He went storming off to find Daniel and get his gun back. He didn't find him and later on he was making a big deal about how he was stoned and that's how he was knocked out. I suggested that prhaps he needed some kind of hormone treatment to balance out all that testosterone but luckily he didn't hear.

Chesca never bothers to talk about stuff with me anymore. In fact, today she was working on some computer equipment with Nikos. I chatted with Mikey and we talked about stuff in the past and his dad. It didn't seem right to talk about future plans because we may not have a future.

Later on today Oshan's stalker ex Tony turned up speaking on the radio that the soldier guy was using. Oshan was right about him still being alive out there. I'd just assumed that he was dead. Tonight whilst on watch I saw light from a fire. It was a house on fire in Stoneyfields - that Scottish couple Kaja au pair's for. Although it was my watch duty I wasn't allowed to go. For some stupid reason Oshan was, even though a few people suggested that it was most likely a trap set by Tony, which sounded quite plausible. Mr Hudson, Oshan and soldier guy went out to Stoneyfields at (unvoidably) the worst time possible when a fire and torchlight was bound to attract the zombies and they wouldn't be able to see much without the street lighting. They came back with Kaja who was confused and shaky and Oshan was even more in shock. I'm told that the Scottish couple and their baby got out of the blaze but were killed by Tony. Our semi tame soldier-sniper killed Tony.

Mrs Hayes made some utterly callous comment like 'better them than us' as if she really didn't care at all. She couldn't even keep the thought to herself, so I snapped at her. I really wish we'd gone back to their house sooner. They might have been ready to join the rest of us by then. If nothing else we could have got Kaja. I hope they treated her right. I appreciate that she shouldn't just run out of the house making lots of noise and going it alone. Why didn't we take her with us on the last visit to their house?? What were we thinking not doing anything? I wish I'd been there that time.