back on land, kicking up a sandstorm and blowing down the wood fence.
When the sand settled, we calmly scoped out the space around us. The silence was broken only by the wind filtering between the adobe houses. Instantly, we felt the sweltering heat. It must’ve been over 110 degrees. The air was dense, thick like hot soup; just drawing a breath was an effort. Even in the best of times, that bleak town at the barren edge of the desert wouldn’t have been a pleasant place to live. Now uninhabited and in ruins, it looked ominous.
On high alert, Prit and I ventured out of the enclosure to take a look around and stretch our legs after hours and hours of flying. The town’s main road was in horrible shape; huge potholes had swallowed up chunks of pavement and were then covered over with sand. No one had set foot on it in months.
We headed into town cautiously, picking our way down the middle of the road. That town was very close to where the Polisario Liberation Front had fought to end to Spanish colonial rule in northern Africa. Many of the roadside ditches in the area were strewn with land mines set by the Polisario or the Moroccan army. Getting blown to bits by a land mine so close to the Canary Islands would’ve really sucked.
One of the first houses we came to had a strong smell, like spoiled milk. It wasn’t the usual smell of rotting flesh. The softer, sour, even spicy smell confused us.
With a nod, we quietly cocked our rifles. We took a deep breath and darted around the corner, aiming wildly in every direction.
The Ukrainian looked completely bewildered. “What the hell is that?”
“No fucking idea, Prit.” I lowered my gun and scratched my head. “I’m just glad I wasn’t here when it happened.”
Stretched on the ground at the end of the narrow alley in front of us were about two dozen bodies that looked like so many others we’d seen. The difference was these bodies hadn’t decomposed. The scorching heat and the extremely dry desert air had mummified them. Their tattered clothing barely covered their skeletal limbs that the sun had scorched a dark mahogany. What skin remained was stretched as tight as a drum.
Cautiously, we eased up to the bodies. They reminded me of the mummies in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. When I kicked the nearest one, the sound was like a piece of firewood. They were completely dehydrated.
Almost all the bodies were mutilated and had numerous wounds, such as gunshots to the head, along with dried blood on their clothes. After months of living among the Undead, we knew what those beings had been before someone offed them.
Prit bent down and picked up a shiny copper casing lying on the ground. He took a quick look and said, “5.56 NATO. Probably from a rifle like the one slung across your back.” He didn’t need to say another word.
The Moroccan army still used the old 7.62 x 51mm CETME that the Spanish military sold them by the thousands when it upgraded in the nineties. That meant that the regular Moroccan army hadn’t done that. But who had—and when?
Suddenly a deep growl came from the pile of corpses. Prit and I jumped as if we’d been poked with a cattle prod. We heard the growl again, deep and raspy, but nothing moved in that motionless heap of human remains.
I nervously released the safety on my HK and shot Prit a puzzled look. The Ukrainian licked his dry lips, hesitated, then inched up to the mound as if it were an atomic bomb.
We heard that growl a third time. It was coming from a body sitting on the ground against a wall, legs outstretched, arms by his sides, and his head resting on his chest. The guy was riddled with bullet holes. Tainted blood stained the wall behind him, tracing the path his body had taken as it slid down. Both knees had been destroyed by gunshots; a couple of dried-up tendons were all that held one leg to his body.
I whistled softly. I couldn’t believe my eyes. That Undead guy had had the bad luck to survive the gunshots. None of them were to the head so they’d only crippled him. Abandoned in that alley for months, drying in the desert sun, he’d been unable to move and unable to die.
I leaned in for a closer look. His limbs were completely dehydrated and rigid; his flesh was slowly turning to jerky or wood. That son of a bitch couldn’t move a muscle, but there was still a glimmer in his withered eyeballs. For the first time, I felt sorry for one of those things. I couldn’t imagine the hell of inhabiting that piece of wood. I doubted he knew what he was, but deep down in that dried-out skull dwelled a furious, raving mad being, trapped in there forever.
With that discovery, we relaxed a little. Any Undead in the area more than a few weeks old would be in the same sorry state, dry as esparto grass and unable to move.
Prit was staring at the beast. I could tell some deep thought was crossing his mind.
“Prit, what’s up, man?” When I put a hand on his shoulder, the Ukrainian flinched.
“I was thinking…” He licked his lips, hesitating. “If extreme heat can do this to those things, then the cold can freeze them. You follow me?”
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, Prit, but I don’t think…”
“Winter in Germany is hard, very hard.” His eyes shone with excitement. “My wife and son were in Dusseldorf, where winter temperatures hover around ten degrees below freezing. If all the Undead froze, maybe my family is okay!” The Ukrainian was so excited he was nearly jumping up and down. “Maybe we should go there!”
I looked at my friend with dismay. He still clung to the hope that his family was alive. “Prit, I think you’re confused,” I said gently, trying not to hurt his feelings. “Extreme heat and extreme cold aren’t the same. I doubt those Undead would freeze to death, as long as they keep moving. Maybe in places where the temperature is fifty or sixty degrees below freezing, but human life is nearly impossible there, too.”
“But… I don’t understand why…” Anxiety contorted my friend’s face.
“Prit, think for a minute. The condition these bastards are in is the result of dehydration, not temperature,” I explained, pointing to the Undead at our feet. “The human body is largely made up of water; very high temperatures dry up all that moisture. No matter how cold it gets up north, there’ll always be enough moisture in the air to keep those bastards going.”
The letdown in Pritchenko’s eyes told me he understood what I’d said. The chances that his family was still alive in Germany were slim.
We moved away slowly, but not before Prit, out of hate or pity, jabbed his knife into the Undead guy’s eye. The creature’s grunts stopped immediately.
Exploring the rest of the town yielded no surprises. Whoever exterminated all the Undead had cleaned out the place. We found nothing useful: no food to replace our rapidly dwindling supplies, no fuel, no weapons, and no water. The village had a deep well, shaded by a shed, situated in front of the mosque. The villagers had used a motorized pump to draw up the water, but there was no trace of that motor. The looters had taken it. All they’d left behind were the bolts that had attached it to the floor of the shed.
The adobe walls of the houses had cracked in the sweltering desert heat. Strong winds had carried off some of the roofs. In a couple of years, if no one intervened, the desert would swallow up that town. It would disappear, as if it had never existed.
The sun was setting over the ocean, turning the sky a spectacular red and bringing the temperature down. We didn’t find any Undead lurking in any of the houses, so we decided to set up camp in the mosque, the only building with carpets on the floor, and spend the night there.
That night, sitting on the beach, cigarette in hand, under a starry sky, I relaxed for the first time in months. That was when it hit me… I’d made it—I was still alive. For the first time since I started that trip, I broke down and cried.
4
