Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (37 page)

I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Five minutes before, I’d been scared to death in a dark hallway, praying to find a way out of there. Now I sounded like a teenager strutting around like a peacock in front of that gorgeous girl. Granted, it’s been months since I’ve seen a live woman, but the way I was acting was over the top.

Lucia didn’t seem to notice of any of that. She laughed delightedly, relieved like me not to be face-to-face with the undead. And, like me, pleased to have some company.

“Where were you?” I asked. “How long have you been here?”

“Nearly three months.” She looked me up and down, taking stock. “You’re not part of the rescue team, are you?” she asked skeptically.

Imagine the picture I made: a rail-thin guy in a filthy, ripped wetsuit, a speargun slung across his back and a pistol at his waist, Pancho Villa style. The stethoscope around my neck added a surreal touch. At least I’d shaved at the Mercedes dealership before we left. I may have looked like a beaten-up, crazy bum, but at least I was clean shaven.

I cleared my throat, uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny. I asked her what she meant by “rescue team.”

“The
army
rescue team, of course!” She must’ve thought I was touched in the head. “One of these days, they’ll assemble a team from the Safe Havens and rescue those of us who stayed behind. Sister Cecilia says it won’t be long.”

I shook my head with a heavy heart. Three months cooped up there, cut off from the outside world. She didn’t have a clue.

“No one’s coming,” I muttered. “There’re no more Safe Havens. Everything’s gone to hell. You’re one of only a handful of survivors I’ve come across in three months.”

Lucia looked at me, dumbfounded. I think if I’d said we’d eaten roasted baby for dinner, she couldn’t have had a more horrified expression.

“What?” She wrung her hands nervously. “That can’t be.” She was talking more to herself than to me. “Someone has to come. There’s got to be someone in charge!”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’ve roamed around the entire area for several weeks. I’ve only come across a handful of
survivors.” I lit a cigarette. “And they weren’t very nice people. The Safe Havens are a graveyard. Lack of food and disease weakened all the refugees. And,” I added, noting how the color drained out of her face, “those monsters overpowered the defense forces and finished everyone off.”

Lucia’s legs buckled. She fell back against the wall and slid to the floor, staring into space, in shock. “No one left,” she murmured. “No one...what’ll happen to us?”

“Us?” I looked at her, puzzled. Then I remembered she’d said something about a Sister Cecilia. “Is there someone else with you?”

She nodded as tears welled up in her eyes. She pointed to the metal door I’d kicked a minute before.

I helped her to her feet. Her skin was soft. For a split second, I got a whiff of her scent. It wasn’t perfume. It was a soft, warm human fragrance with a pungent female undertone. She smelled like a woman. Six months of abstinence had made my sense of smell very keen.

Lucia looked me in the face. For a moment I thought I’d drown in her eyes. They were like vast green lakes. My head was buzzing. I felt dizzy. Lucullus’s scratches brought me back to reality. My cat was trying to get my attention. He was determined to climb my pant leg, pissed off that we weren’t paying any attention to him.

We retraced our steps across that expanse of water from the basement to the foot of the stairs. Although we’d just met (or maybe because of that), we splashed along side by side without saying a word. Occasionally one of us tripped on something hidden underwater and leaned on the other to get our balance, muttering “Thanks” or “Watch out.” That was it.

Funny. I was convinced that if I found another survivor, someone besides the laconic Ukrainian, I’d talk up a storm. But now I didn’t know what to say. I was as tongue-tied as a teenager on a first date. Maybe she felt the same way.

Actually, I think it’s easy to explain what happened. After months of isolation and silence, after all the stress and danger, we’d painfully learned the value of silence. There were things we didn’t need to talk about. The presence of another living being was one of them. We were enjoying that rediscovered experience so intensely we thought (or at least I thought) talking might break the spell.

We made it back to the chapel in just a few minutes. What had seemed to take an eternity was surprisingly brief on the return trip. It helped that we hadn’t run into a single undead. The monsters had the run of the place, but this girl knew the building very well. We moved down closed-off corridors where no one had walked in months. It was all a blur to me. I was still in shock at finding a survivor who spoke my language, who didn’t try to put a bullet in me, and who seemed even more freaked out than I was. I needed some time to reflect.

With the key I’d hung around my neck, I unlocked the chapel. My first thought was—Prit’s dead. His head hung down at an unnatural angle, and he didn’t move a muscle. He was slumped over on the pew where I’d left him. His body was as limp as if he’d been in that chapel for a million years.

I rushed down the aisle, braced for the worst, sure the stress had gotten the best of the Ukrainian. All those months on the edge had taken their toll. I realized I was crying. No, Prit, please. Please.

When I got to his side, I found that the Ukrainian was breathing. A huge sigh of relief emptied my lungs. I cradled his head against my chest. Not yet, old friend, not yet. Hold on a little longer.

Pritchenko may not have been not dead, but his condition was alarming. His glazed eyes peered off into space. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth, making him look helpless and
fragile. I said his name over and over but got no answer. Prit was catatonic. Completely gone.

Lucia stood a few steps behind me, watching me with a puzzled expression. She just had to take one look at him to wonder how on earth I got there, dragging along an invalid—a short guy with a big mustache, one arm in a blood-soaked sling and a thousand small cuts on his face, who seemed to be on a different planet.

I felt her questioning gaze on my back. I got really mad. How the hell could I explain everything Prit had been through? How did I explain the horrors he’d braved to reach that lousy abandoned room?

Lucia didn’t ask any questions. She just spoke in a soft voice as she slipped an arm under Prit and helped him sit up. I was surprised how tenderly she treated him. She looked like a little girl nursing a baby duck with a broken wing.

We headed slowly back down to the metal door in the basement. Clearly Prit was in no condition to leave. Oh sure, I could go it alone (that is, Lucullus and I could). We’d probably make it, but I ruled out that option.

I couldn’t leave Prit behind. Not that girl either. And just thinking about going back out there alone made my stomach churn. No, for better or worse I’d stay with them. If I could endure all those ordeals, I could deal with whatever lay ahead.

When we reached the metal door with no lock, Lucia knocked a few times (two quick, three spaced apart, and finally a loud kick) and waited. After a few seconds, someone turned the lock from inside, and the door opened. Light streamed out through the open door, blinding us for a second.

Light.

Electricity. Somehow they had electricity.

I took a couple of steps toward the door. I smelled something really delicious cooking. I glanced back at the gloomy, damp
tunnel and hesitated. I’d had bad experiences with other survivors. I didn’t know who or what I’d find on the other side of that door. Under the circumstances, I decided it was worth finding out. Bottom line, I had no choice. Not hesitating any longer, I stepped through the doorway. The heavy metal door closed behind us with a thud, leaving the hallway dark again.

Whatever came next, we were part of it.

I’ve spent four magical months recovering my sanity and putting some distance between me and the cornered animal I was becoming. Those months helped me remember I’m a human being, not just prey fighting to survive.

I’ve recovered physically, too, thanks to the rest, good food, and attentive care of my new friends. I’m back to the shape I was in before all hell broke loose. But not everything has healed. Part of me has grown hard and bitter, like a war veteran. My values and my idea of what’s important have changed. That shouldn’t be a surprise. The whole fucking world has changed.

Now we’re a group of four, not counting Lucullus. Prit and I have joined forces with Lucia and Sister Cecilia. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A fucking nun in the middle of this madness. As I write this, they’re working away at the stove, their backs to me. It’s great to have a hot meal every day.

Our refuge is fantastic. Behind the metal door and up a short flight of stairs is a subbasement that’s completely closed off from the rest of the hospital
.
This was the hospital’s huge kitchen, which turned out thousands of meals for staff and patients daily.

There are only three ways to gain access to the place: the freight elevator that carried supplies to the top floor, the stairs that connect to the rest of the hospital, and the emergency staircase we used to get in. The elevator was disabled by a piece of metal that held the doors open. The main staircase is cut off from the next floor by thick doors that are chained shut. The only possible way into the basement is down the emergency stairs. A single entrance and exit, protected by a fire door. Completely safe and impossible to get through.

But that’s not the best part. To our relief, the hospital’s emergency generators are still running, supplying power to this sector. The giant freezers in the kitchen, filled with enough food to feed an army, are still operating. Since there’re only four of us (and a cat who eats enough for two), I calculate we have enough frozen food for two years.

The hospital has its own water supply. Years ago, when they were digging the building’s foundations, they discovered a huge aquifer. So water’s not a problem.

All we have to worry about is the generators failing or running out of fuel. We don’t know exactly where they’re located or where the control panel is. We ration energy as much as we can, but we know that the generators’ reserves of diesel fuel aren’t infinite. Sooner or later we’ll have to face that situation.

Sister Cecilia Iglesias is an exceptional human being. She’s a small woman in her fifties, bubbly and plump with an intelligent twinkle in her eyes, from a remote village in Avila, like Spain’s patron saint, Saint Teresa. For the last fifteen years, she’d worked in a hospital run by her order a hundred or so miles from Nairobi, Kenya. She’d come to Vigo to give lectures at several religious schools but got trapped by the turmoil of the pandemic at the airport. At first she was housed in a crowded hotel in town, waiting for things to blow over. When it was clear that the situation
was out of control, this energetic woman refused to be a passive refugee.

She learned that Meixoeiro Hospital was still caring for hundreds of people, but had an acute shortage of medical personnel. Most had fled or were dead. She didn’t hesitate to show up at its door, offering her services as a nurse. She spent the final weeks of civilization in a whirlwind of exhausting work that kept her from learning news of the outside world. While I was comfortably holed up in my house, Sister Cecilia was tending to a constant, heart-wrenching stream of wounded refugees.

Meixoeiro Hospital was the only medical center that was operational until almost the end. That’s why so many ambulances and cars kept making their way to its door to drop off dozens and dozens of injured people.

Sister Cecilia told me that a couple of army doctors sorted through the wounded at the entrance of to the ER. Those who had bites or scratches or had had some contact with the infected creatures were escorted by a platoon of soldiers to another “specialized medical center” nearby.

I didn’t have the heart to tell that pious woman that that “specialized” center never existed. The overwhelmed military must have applied their own brand of “final solution” to the injured for whom there was no hope. In some field nearby, there’re probably hundreds of dead with a bullet in their head, slowly rotting in a mass grave. That’s how terrible the situation had gotten.

Not counting those unfortunate people, there were still hundreds of sick and wounded that the overloaded hospital staff struggled to administer to. Traffic accidents, people injured in rioting and looting, stroke victims, patients with appendicitis...the whole spectrum of illnesses and accidents poured in. Meixoeiro Hospital reached crisis mode as the situation outside unraveled.

One day, the order came to evacuate everyone to the Vigo Safe Haven. Authorities could no longer secure the perimeter. Out of all the ambulances that responded to emergency calls, only half returned. The rest were mysteriously swallowed up.

A BRILAT armored unit appeared one morning to organize the evacuation convoy. Hundreds of sick and wounded were crammed on to the open beds of army trucks and into ambulances, taxis, private cars—anything with four wheels—along with tons of drugs and most of the medical staff. They had to leave behind about a hundred patients who were too sick to be moved. A small group of volunteers, Sister Cecilia among them, chose to stay to care for those poor doomed people so they didn’t have to suffer a slow, painful death alone. Maybe it would’ve been better if they had.

The group included three doctors and five nurses, counting Sister Cecilia. A small conglomeration of soldiers and policemen were stationed there as protection. Their mission was to hunker down in the hospital and wait for a larger rescue team that would come “at a later date.” Obviously, the rescue team never came.

While the medical team struggled to keep their critically ill patients alive, the soldiers systematically fortified the entrances. That accounts for the locked doors we encountered. The basement we’re in was christened “Numantia” by a sergeant with a macabre sense of humor, a place to reenact the Spaniards’ famous resistance to a Roman siege in the second century. If the defenses fell, everyone was to take refuge in this sector. The generators were set on automatic. They cut the power to the entire building except the kitchens. Once they’d done that, all they could do was wait.