Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

the open sea, so he did what felt was right. He dispersed the crowd with bullets. It was a real massacre. Then he gave the order to shell all boats in the harbor and sink them. If there was no way to escape, survivors at the Safe Haven would have to fight to the end. What he didn’t know was that all hope for the Vigo Safe Haven was gone.

The Zaren Kibish was saved from being sunk because it was anchored quite a distance from the port, and its broken drive shaft prevented it from sailing off. Still, every day dozens of desperate people swam to the freighter, begging to be allowed on board. Ushakov was very strict and ordered his men not to even come out on deck. The Zaren Kibish couldn’t afford to host dozens of starving, sick, desperate survivors.

“That was the situation at the Vigo Safe Haven when it happened.”

“When what happened?” I asked.

“The day the Vigo Safe Haven fell,” he replied, ominously.

ENTRY 60

March 8, 5:13 p.m.

Thick clouds rolled in as we talked in the stiflingly close air of that unventilated cabin. A storm was brewing, but it was nothing compared to the earthquake inside me as I listened to Ushakov’s story. I couldn’t tear myself away from that story. I needed to hear it. I needed to know everything.

“Things really fell apart about a week after the boats sailed away.” His eyes clouded up. “That was to be expected.”

“Why was that to be expected?”

“Think about it, Mr. Lawyer. When the ships sailed off, all naval personnel were on them, plus a few lucky soldiers. That left the overwhelmed Colonel Jovellanos with only three hundred men to defend the entire perimeter of the Safe Haven and the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children crowded into it.”

“Yeah, so?” I admit that all the vodka I’d drunk had clouded my mind. I didn’t see all the implications. Ushakov, like any good Ukrainian, was used to the poison and didn’t seem affected.

“Well, that’s obvious!” He snorted. “They were so short of troops, he had to recruit volunteers from among the civilians huddled like rats in the harbor and equip them with combat gear.” He paused. “That was the only way he could continue to control the perimeter. Considering how low their spirits were, that was a recipe for disaster.”

Through my alcohol-induced haze, I grasped the situation as Ushakov mercilessly reeled off the events he witnessed from the deck of the Zaren Kibish. Jovellanos recruited several hundred civilians, armed them to the teeth, and had them patrol the perimeter or sent them on looting missions outside the Safe Haven.

But they weren’t soldiers. They were just armed civilians dressed like soldiers, with no notion of urban warfare and survival. Add to that, they were desperate and hungry. Casualties mounted dramatically. Every time a volunteer fell, his equipment was lost, so the defense capability was slowly but inexorably reduced.

“That’s when the captain started talking to himself. By now there were tens of thousands of those creatures mobbing the fence around the harbor. I could see them through my binoculars. It was a horrible sight—thousands of those prvotskje, packed together, silent, with their horrible wounds, all dead yet still walking.” His brow furrowed. “It is a punishment from God, I have no doubt.”

“What happened then?”

“What happened was what had to happen. Those monsters overran the port.”

“But how?”

He glared at me. “How? What difference does that make? The fact is they got in. That’s what matters. It could’ve been anything. Maybe some of the civilians on mission outside the perimeter got infected and weren’t brave enough or disciplined enough to report it until it was too late. Maybe those things found a breach in the perimeter. Or maybe one night someone forgot to lock a gate or didn’t double-check a padlock.” He spread his arms and shrugged. “They got in…and then it was chaos.”

I could picture the scene as Ushakov described it. Some infected creatures slipped inside the perimeter and wreaked havoc. Panic broke out. An avalanche of humans rushed aimlessly from one side to another, trying to escape those things. That chaos was their downfall. If Jovellanos had had more soldiers, he could have done something, but he didn’t stand a chance with his cobbled-together civilian militias and the remnants of military groups. The units he sent to restore order were trampled by a panicked crowd that wouldn’t listen. The few professional soldiers that remained tried to wade into the crowd and confront the undead. Since there so few of them, the crowd kept them from acting quickly.

“No matter how much firepower you have, if you’re alone on a battlefield filled with enemies, you’re screwed.” He scratched his head, looked at me gravely. “We learned that in Afghanistan years ago. It was the same here.”

The few surviving soldiers were cut off from the rest of their units. They put up a heroic, desperate front against the growing number of undead. Finally they were swallowed up by that tide. From that point on, the fate of thousands of refugees was sealed. They were unarmed, trapped, panicked, and helpless. The die was cast.

“Those who were crushed to death or suffocated by the crowd were the lucky ones.” Ushakov’s voice was almost a whisper. “At least they didn’t see what came next.”

I hardly dared to ask. But I had to. “What happened?” My voice broke.

“When the colonel saw all was lost, he applied his own type of ‘final solution.’ Weeks before, his men had placed explosive charges filled with highly volatile chemical fertilizers in the warehouses and barracks in the port. He reasoned that if everything went to shit, he’d drag all the fucking monsters he could to hell.” Leaning his hulk back, Ushakov rubbed his eyes and blinked. “But it went terribly wrong.”

“What happened?”

“He miscalculated the impact of the explosions.” He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and handed me one. I grabbed it, eager to have the taste of something besides alcohol in my mouth.

“Many people had taken refuge inside the warehouses. When the charges went off, the roofs crashed down in flames on their heads.” He lit the cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke. “They were burned to death or crushed almost immediately. They were very lucky.”

“Why do you say that?”

“For the thousands still on the port, running from one place to another, there was no escape.” His gravelly voice quivered. “Picture the scene that night. In the dark, lit up by just the glow of the fires, thousands of people ran nonstop, terrified, not knowing if the group behind them was human or the undead. From the Zaren we could hear the shouting, moaning, howling, and a few shots. The smell of smoke and charred flesh hung thick in the air. You wanted to throw up.” He bowed his head, looking feverish. “It was a window right into hell.”

I shuddered. I imagined the horror and utter despair those people must’ve felt, trapped in the port, cornered by those things. When they were bitten, those former refugees were now hunters, joining the pack of the undead, attacking their friends or relatives. The eerie glow of roaring fires lit up that madness.

“There’s not much more to tell. The carnage continued for thirteen or fourteen hours. We couldn’t see the shore because of all the smoke. Finally, all the noise stopped. We didn’t hear another thing except the occasional crackle of a charred building collapsing or the low moan of one of those things.” He paused. “Well, and that sound, of course.”

“Sound? What sound?”

“At first we didn’t know what it was. We were used to the racket hundreds of thousands of people made. Now the port was strangely quiet, the way it is now,” he said, pointing out a porthole. “The silence took us by surprise. That’s how we were able to hear the noise.”

“You still haven’t told me what the noise was,” I protested.