Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

receiving supplies. The astonished crew of the Zaren Kibish watched two hundred thousand people mob the port. In just a few days, the multitude reached numbers they’d never dreamed of.

A place they thought would never fill up couldn’t handle this human tide. The overcrowding got out of control, as refugees from all over Galicia and even neighboring northern Portugal joined the original refugees. The Safe Haven was soon at maximum capacity, but refugees kept thronging to its doors. Plus, no one dared leave the Safe Haven. That’d be suicide, since the undead already roamed the area.

The Safe Haven was supposedly commanded by a civilian committee made up of the mayor, a representative of the provincial government, and two conselleiros of the Xunta of Galicia who happened to be trapped there. But the commander of a navy frigate docked in Vigo and an army colonel really ran the whole show. Together they directed the military forces defending the Safe Haven.

Ushakov stopped abruptly and looked up from the bottom of his glass. “Here’s where the story gets unpleasant.” He studied me. “Sure you want to hear the rest?”

I swallowed hard and nodded, unable to speak. With a sigh, Ushakov continued.

ENTRY 59

March 7, 6:42 p.m.

At first, everything went according to plan. The military forces at the Vigo Safe Haven—about six hundred men from various units of the army, navy, and Civil Guard, along with what remained of the local police—maintained the integrity of the perimeter. They had plenty of combat equipment, including several armored personnel carriers and a couple of helicopter gunships. Docked in the harbor were a navy transport ship and an F-100 frigate, fresh from the shipyard, equipped with a modern Aegis missile system. The civilian and military command center for the entire region was based in Ferrol, in northern Galicia.

“Their defenses easily took out the first waves of undead,” continued Ushakov. “They were well entrenched and had enough firepower to keep the undead at bay. But more and more came, and ammunition grew scarce.”

“How do you know all this?”

“During that time I went ashore with some of my men,” he said with a shrug. “One of my crew was in the hospital they’d set up in a warehouse. He fell and broke his hip during the storm. We visited several times.”

“Why not stay on land?”

“I couldn’t abandon my ship,” he replied, giving me a that’s-a-no-brainer look. “The Safe Haven authorities wouldn’t let us stay more than a few hours.” He poured another glass of vodka. “Their supplies were running low, and they didn’t want any more mouths to feed.” As the days went by, the Safe Haven filled to overflowing. Two hundred thousand people became 350,000 as groups from other Safe Havens and isolated survivors arrived. It was the only place humans controlled for 250 miles around.

From the start, there were problems with supplies and disease. A crowd that size consumes several tons of food every day. The supplies they thought would arrive by sea never came despite promises from authorities. There were no supplies to send.

The commanders quickly organized looting parties. Every day, columns of armored trucks, escorted by soldiers and volunteers armed to the teeth, left the Safe Haven and returned at nightfall with pounds and pounds of food. But that plan soon failed. Once they’d looted the shopping centers downtown, the expedition had to go farther and farther, with increasingly discouraging results. On a good day, they brought in about thirty tons of food, not enough to feed all those mouths. So they started rationing.

“Rationing,” I whispered, stunned. “How can that be? The malls around here are huge. There should’ve been enough food to last for years.”

“My dear boy,” Ushakov said, shaking his head. “Think about how much food three hundred and fifty thousand people eat every day. The biggest shopping centers could only feed a crowd like that for a week. Tops. Then supplies ran out, and there were no delivery trucks to replenish what they’d consumed.”

I was speechless, stunned. I pictured how desperate the looting parties must’ve felt, crossing the dead city, surrounded by thousands of those things, forced to strip every little corner grocery store, risking their lives for less than two hundred pounds of food. Damn, they must’ve been demoralized.

“Food was not the only problem,” continued Ushakov mercilessly. “Three hundred and fifty thousand people shitting and pissing generate a lot of waste. The plumbing system couldn’t handle it all. Soon the port smelled like a sewer.” A smile lit up his sad face. “Life aboard the Zaren Kibish looked like a dream to that mob of people on land.”

I couldn’t speak. The pressure in my chest tightened as the story unfolded.

“Disease quickly followed the filth, the way it usually does in situations like this. The port had maybe one or two thousand bathrooms. That’s an average of three hundred fifty people per crapper, nyet?” Ushakov was talking louder now. “Typhus and other diseases spread like wildfire.”

“Other diseases?” I uttered in a hoarse voice. My throat felt like sandpaper.

“Da, other diseases. Those in charge didn’t take that into account. Even in a crisis, people were still people. They had cancer or high blood pressure, children came down with childhood diseases, women gave birth…” He frowned deeply. “There were outbreaks of botulism from eating spoiled food.” He sighed. “A sailor on this ship came down with it. Diseases began to take their toll. Part of the port was turned into a cemetery. You can see it from our deck. In a few weeks several hundred mounds covered it.” The vodka bottle was almost empty. “They were the lucky ones.”

Ushakov snorted, hoisted up his huge bulk, and went to the cupboard for a second bottle. Then he continued. “Things spun out of control. Desperation and the law of the survival of the fittest undermined the Safe Haven. There were fights, thefts, and murders as people fought for food. The military declared martial law. Dozens of murderers and thieves were hung from cranes in the harbor as a lesson for the rest. Only the crows and gulls benefited from that as they feasted on the eyes of the hanged.”

The situation was dire. The need for food was overwhelming, so the fighting continued. The survivors had two choices: live in purgatory at the port or face the hell outside. They’d come to the end of the road.

“When things got ugly, a boat loaded with soldiers boarded the Zaren and searched for provisions. They couldn’t find anything, of course.” Ushakov winked at me. “We’d hidden most of our food in the hold with tons of steel coils. Thanks to that, we never went hungry.”

My first reaction was that he’d been incredibly selfish. Then I realized he’d made the logical decision. I’d have done the same thing. As I studied the pensive Ukrainian staring at the wall behind me, it struck me that this guy was devious. And very smart.

“What happened next?”

“Then things got really nasty. One dark night, the frigate and the military transport weighed anchor and quietly left the harbor. On board were all the navy personnel, civilian authorities, and two or three hundred people with connections, influence, or money.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where they were headed. The Canary Islands, maybe. Some place the infection hadn’t reached. They just took off and left everyone else in the lurch,” he said, knocking back another shot of vodka.

As I sipped my vodka, Ushakov told me that the next day, when the crowd discovered that the military vessels were gone, all hell broke out. The most surprised was the army colonel who commanded the three hundred soldiers left at the Safe Haven. He and the navy commander had crossed swords. The confrontation got so bad, no one let him in on the escape plan. Colonel Jovellanos was a strict disciplinarian in every way. The tense situation and the responsibility for the safety of all those people rested too heavily on his shoulders. It weighed on him so much that he lost control.

When the crowd discovered that the warships were gone, they went crazy trying to board any boat in the harbor. A rumor spread that the frigate was headed for the Canary Islands, the only place in Spanish territory the plague hadn’t reached. Any boat accompanying it would be allowed to dock. Jovellanos knew this rumor wasn’t true. To make matters worse, 80 percent of the boats in the port couldn’t make a journey of thousands of miles on