The Infected by Gregg Cocking Page B

lights – eight of the ‘rocks’, and after another slice of luck, three of the larger pole mounted lights. I had a figure of about fifteen in mind when I left, so thirteen was close enough for me. I didn’t have any more encounters with the infected other than poor Huge, although I did hear them, I think. In one unit towards the pool I could hear that unmistakable grunting/breathing, and in a downstairs unit where I had jumped over the wall to get two solar powered lights, I shat myself when I heard a banging on the window just a few metres behind me. I jumped, nail gun at the ready, and saw two hands outlined by those white, thin curtain things – (liners? I don’t know the name, I am a guy). I couldn’t see a face, just the big hands alternating as they rhythmically banged on the window. I wasn’t going to hang around to see who/what it was, or to see if the continuous banging would eventually break the window. I was out of there in a flash.
     
    Okay, so I got back to my place and after locking myself in and making sure that the thing inside unit 78 that had seen me hadn’t got out and followed me back, I laid out my loot on the kitchen counter. Shit... power is running low. Will get back to you tomorrow after a day of charging the battery.
     
    Take care,
    Sam W
     
    5:47pm, June 1
    Hi bloggers. Sorry about that – it seems that my solar power allows me about 45 minutes of computer power a day, and that’s making sure that I don’t run the batteries flat in case I need to charge my phone or iPod.
     
    Okay, so to get back to the story that I was unable to finish yesterday… I laid out everything that I had found from both Barry’s place and from the gardens on my kitchen counter and looked at it. Then I took a step back and looked at it for a bit longer. Then I picked up a solar powered light. Then I put it down again. Then some cables. And I put that down again too. Then, somehow, I managed to make sense of everything without really knowing what I was doing. I removed all the solar panels from the lights and connected them together, gluing their backs to the bottom of a big cardboard box. Using some of Barry’s cabling I made sure that they were all linked in sequence. When I was done I stepped back and looked at what I had a created – a rather large-ish 50cm x 50cm give or take a few centimetres here or there, solar panel. I was impressed.
     
    I then found the UPS, also from Barry, and after a bit of wiring and rewiring, and then some further rewiring, I plugged my makeshift solar panel in and the UPS whirred. Not much, but it made an audible noise. I would have screamed with joy if it wasn’t for the fact that zombies would have heard me. It was now close to 5pm, and although there was only a dwindling amount of winter sunlight left on the balcony, I just had to try it out. I eased open the door, placed the panel gingerly in the quickly diminishing afternoon winter sun, passed the cable through the window and plugged it into the UPS. Nothing. I then remembered to turn the UPS back on, and… success!!! The lights that had been red started to flash green intermittently, meaning that it was receiving a charge. Until the sun disappeared three minutes later.
     
    But that was enough to give me hope, and after a bad night’s sleep peppered with dreams of sun and enormous solar panels which melted my fingers when I touched them, I awoke to check on my ‘invention’. I was a bit over eager and had to wait until just before ten before the first rays of sun started stretching over the balcony, but as they hit the panel the red light changed to green. I had done it, I thought. Just to be sure, I plugged my Mac into the UPS and it registered that it was charging – yay! And then I tried my phone. And then my iPod – they both worked!
     
    You can’t believe how good this feels! All my life I have struggled with anything remotely technical, but now, under such tough circumstances I have managed to prosper.