Entry 1

 

Silence had fallen on the Earth and mankind was no more.

 

Why then, was I still here?

 

 

 

I can’t really tell you why I am writing this record. Or whether there is a ‘you’ to which I could tell my reasons, if I had any.

 

But here it is nevertheless.

 

Nevertheless?

 

Why the hell am I writing this thing like it’s some kind of legal document, or, worse still, some kind of pseudo religious text?

 

It’s probably the 18-year-old single malt. Pretty good stuff. It has a picture of a fish on it.

 

 

 

Entry 2

 

Good job there are no zombies.

 

Best to get that out there straight away. I’ll get to the details later; what I know of them. But, enough to know for right now, there are no zombies.

 

The reason I am reflecting on the virtue of a lack of walking dead is that it’s now morning, and my head feels like a speaker at a rock concert. If I had to move quickly now to defend myself or, more likely, to run away, I fear that my head would fall off.

 

That’s the 18-year-old single malt gone.

           

As I look at the empty bottle, I wonder what the little fish is going to swim in now. Then I give a rue smile, for about the thirtieth time, at the name of the whiskey… The Singleton.

           

That’s me alright! And yeah, that’s a real whiskey. You can look it up if you like.

           

Whoever owned this house before all this, had pretty good taste in booze. The décor is that kind of ‘tasteful’ that probably has a name and can probably be described as a period or something. The chairs probably took seven cows each to upholster and the carpet is as thick as the film on my tongue. There are ornaments that the owner probably described as ‘pieces’ and the ornately framed paintings are all real.

 

Whoever owned this house before all this, also had a nice collection of shotguns; which was my real reason for coming here.

 

It’s true, there are no zombies. I haven’t seen a single other being, shuffling or otherwise, since this whole thing happened. However, being the pragmatic human soul that I am, I figured it would be a prudent precaution to get as heavily armed as I possibly could.

 

My mum used to clean for a place like this when I was at school, years ago. She had brought me along once; must have been a school holiday. Whoever owned that house had also had shotguns. And three massive male dogs that spent the whole time I was there trying to mount each other in the gated-off driveway.

 

Having spent much of my childhood reading books like The Day of the Triffids, I had immediately formed the plan that a place like this would be my first port of call in any impending apocalypse. I used to walk to school, wrapped up in daydreams of quiet streets and empty houses. I’d find unlocked classrooms in the dinner break and riffle through draws and cupboards. Not to steal. Just to explore. It was a place to hide from the popular kids who taunted me and threatened me.

 

I was The Singleton, even then.

 

 

 

As I loaded the shotguns, ammo, and all the tinned food I could find into the back of the small lorry I had picked up (thanks again for the tip, Mr Wyndham!), I wondered where my next port of call should be.

 

I’m afraid that my schoolboy plans had kind of petered out after the whole shotguns, lorry and tinned food part. If my lack of a definitive plan disappoints you, then it might disappoint you even further to know that I’ve missed out quite a bit of this ‘record’.

 

You see, it’s not like I sprang into action as soon as it all went tits up. For a start, it took some time to convince myself that this really was it – the impending apocalypse had impended and the silence of the Earth was a permanent thing that wasn’t some kind of hallucination or the most elaborate Jeremy Beadle prank since he had faked his own death in 2008 (there’s a topical reference for you!).

 

No, I had spent a good two weeks before this, jumping at shadows, scampering about my own home, waiting for the TV to start working again and for the news to come on and announce that normal service had resumed and to apologise for the inconvenience.

 

It’s surprising how long you cling on to a sense of normality, even when there is no trace of it left.

 

It took two weeks of no TV, no people, no animals, of silence to accept that whatever had happened had happened, and that for all intense and purposes, it appeared that there wasn’t going to be anything else happening, ever again.

 

Those two weeks were pretty grim.

 

So, I here I am now, my brief soiree into discernible planned action had come to an abrupt stop and now I’m left wondering what the hell to do.

 

But here I am. Nevertheless.