I saw a bird circling the other day. I couldn't be sure as I've never seen one, but it did look big enough to be an albatross. It flew away to the south, which is where I think the sea is. Hard to tell these days. Do albatrosses ever fly over land?

It was just after that I stumbled across a lumbering horde. I ducked out of sight but they must have spotted me. I got lucky and managed to flee over a river and destroy the bridge behind me. "Never burn your bridges, you never know when you'll want to go back" I was told back in the days when people still had jobs. Although I don't think the dispensers of that advice had lumbering zombie hordes on their minds when they gave it. I stood on the other side and watched their lurching spasmodic movements as they fell into the water, sinking like stones.

The silence is getting to me. Why is it that never a sound passes their lips. They move in silence, never making a sound after their birth groan. That's bad enough though. That groan they make when they first stumble back to life.

I was next to one once, in the beginning. Just after the initial excavation when we found the ship entombed in silt at the bottom of the bay. Trying to excavate the ship while it was still underwater had proven too dangerous. There had been four deaths of support crew who were helping to remove the silt from the bow section. Initially they were un-explained but we know the reason now of course. The reason why those men had just died in their tracks. 

So after that attempt was abandoned a container had been built around the whole ship, and the water pumped out. It was a massive task and the construction crew was equally massive. I remember the day well. There had been a massive cheer from the entire workforce as the first ribs of the dead ship had poked through the top of the sea. The sprinklers had switched on to stop the hulk drying out and the rest of the water had been pumped out. Everybody had taken their turn to have a look at the ship. Everyone except me, I don't do well in crowds. I'd just watched it on the monitor screens.

The water had been gone three days before the alarm was raised. It started with the imported workers. They'd returned to their homes after 3 months on site, and one by one had just died as the sun went down.

Initially disease was suspected and all the remaining site people were quarantined. Not that it did any good. The deaths spread. Anybody who'd touched somebody was themselves a marked man. At sundown three days after the touch they'd be dead, and then anybody they'd touched, and anybody they'd touched.

So it went on. Six and a half billion people, with neither sign nor groan. Lifeless lumps one and all.

Except me. Me with my obsessive compulsive fear of touch. Oh I'm sure there must be others, or must have been others. Locked away or living alone with no contact. Over a matter of weeks with nobody left to contact. There must still be some, tucked away on an island somewhere. The sort of place where hippies go and live "back to the land".

And then they started to come back. I'm not sure what was worse. Being next to somebody when they dropped down dead, wondering if you'd be next. Or being next to a body when it came back to life, the unearthly groan is enough to drive you mad.

Anyway, mustn't grumble. There's plenty to eat, and as long as you're sensible the animated dead aren't much of a threat. I should get a boat really. Ironically the one place you're safe is out on the sea. That's where I'm heading now. I'm going to track down that guy who told me about the boat in the first place. The one who told me the tale about the sea-faring dead. And when I find him, I'm going to beat him to death with a sea bird.

The fucker.