case as a shield and observed this horrible death. I don’t know if Waqar could feel anything, but I prayed his mind was long gone.
Four hours and fifty-five minutes into the coma, Waqar’s body lay still. Even after ten minutes, I didn’t dare leave the precarious protection of Plexiglas to approach the still-warm body. He didn’t seem to be breathing. I wasn’t sure. I decided to get a little closer, just six feet. The body lay motionless in a pool of red liquid. The smell was nauseating. I squatted down beside the body to see if he was breathing (not for all the gold in the world would I have knelt in the middle of that mess). He wasn’t.
Suddenly, Waqar’s gummy, bloodshot eyes flew open. He opened his mouth and let out a deep death rattle. I got the fright of my life. With panicked scream, I jumped up, took a couple of steps back, and fell on my ass on the concrete. I was terrified that Waqar’s body would get up.
But nothing happened. As I tried to calm the runaway beat of my heart, Viktor, Shafiq, and Usman peered through the door, drawn by my unmanly shriek. I didn’t feel one bit ashamed. Anyone in my place would’ve been scared shitless.
I sat up and scanned the body again. That had been his last gasp. It was so violent and unexpected, I nearly died of fright. Waqar was dead. But for how long?
That was the least of our problems. The only way out of this place was the front door, and that crowd of monsters had no intention of leaving. That door would give way sooner or later.
ENTRY 68
I write this by the light of Victor’s flashlight. The last twelve hours have been worse than when those things turned up at my house, a million years ago.
Twelve minutes after Waqar’s last gasp, his body did a number of things that definitely weren’t natural. His chest wasn’t moving. I guess those things don’t breathe. His entire right arm shook. He was dead, and yet his arm twitched. It was incredible.
If that weren’t enough, his gummy, bloodshot eyes flew open and started moving spookily from side to side, not focusing on anything. The tiny broken veins in the whites of his eyes gave him a ghoulish look.
The tremor in his right arm spread to other limbs. After a few minutes, his entire body vibrated as if an electric current were running through it. In an ominous way, its body was coming alive. I say “its body” because Waqar’s soul, spirit, or whatever you call it had flown far away. A monster inhabited that body now.
We watched that unnatural spectacle, mesmerized. Usman was terrified. Tears rolled down his face, and he sobbed loudly and soulfully as he clung to his AK-47. The guy was about to lose it. It was too much for him.
Shafiq seemed unwilling to accept that reality and stubbornly bobbed forward and backward, sort of catatonic, obsessively reciting prayers from the Koran in a muffled chant that gave me the willies. In the background, we could hear the sound of hell—undead roaring and pounding at the gate.
Viktor gripped the huge gun he’d taken from Kritzinev with both hands. With a determined look on his face, he took a deep breath, cocked the rifle, and aimed at Waqar’s head. The thing was wobbling as it attempted to stand up. I shook my head and grabbed his arm to lower the gun. I wanted to see. I needed to know. Will he recognize us? Can we talk to him?
Kritzinev suddenly appeared at the door, staggering around, half-asleep. That crazed scene took him completely by surprise. He’d come to take a piss. On the way to the john, he came upon his two hostages now armed, two of his men totally overcome by the situation, and the third mutating into one of those things.
For a moment he didn’t grasp the situation. Then the light went on. He ran over to Shafiq and snatched his assault rifle. By then, Waqar had managed to sit up and was looking around, dazed and bewildered. A new monster had been born, twelve minutes after he died. It was scary. Kritzinev went up to Waqar and aimed, his hands trembling. His voice cracked as he shouted something in Urdu. Waqar didn’t respond and continued to try to stand up. He shouted again. This time Waqar, the monster, glared at him and let out a terrifying groan, revealing a dark mouth filled with blood and pus.
That was too much for Kritzinev. He took a step back and pulled the trigger. The AK-47 was set on automatic, and it jumped in his hands, unleashing a hail of bullets. Waqar’s head was instantly turned into red pulp, like a watermelon hit by a truck, soaking Kritzinev with brains and blood.
All hell broke loose. One of the Pakistanis threw up noisily. Waqar’s body fell backward, convulsing. Kritzinev was enraged. He jumped over Waqar’s body and pointed the gun at our heads. For a second I thought he had the DTs from all the alcohol he’d drunk and was to going to blow us all away. That would be an absurd, ironic end: survive the apocalypse and hundreds of undead, only to be killed by a hallucinating drunk in the back room of an abandoned grocery store.
Fortunately, Kritzinev got a hold of himself and didn’t fire, but he kept the gun pointed at us. Barking at Pritchenko in Russian, he forced us against the wall. He snatched the gun from the Ukrainian, who made no effort to resist. Smart move. Hearing the gunfire, both Pakistanis snapped out of their catatonic state and stood behind their boss, guns in hand, glaring at us, ready to pull the trigger if we made the slightest hostile move. The best thing was to look innocent and roll with it.
Kritzinev pounced on Pritchenko and violently punched him, sending him crashing against the wall. With a look of sadistic satisfaction, he turned to me and raised his arm, ready to give me my share. I cringed, bracing myself.
At that moment, the unsettling sound of ripping metal ricocheted through the store. The gate had given way. Kritzinev forgot all about punching me. He shouted something in Urdu to the Pakistanis and rushed to the front door with them right behind him. I hung back with Pritchenko. I heard them drag shelves over to build a barricade.
I helped Prit stand up. He had a bruise on his cheek and spat out some blood, but nothing that would kill him. No time to think about that. I went up to the storeroom door. The Pakistanis and Kritzinev had barricaded themselves in behind the metal gate, which was coming loose on one side. Each time the crowd hit it, plaster and rubble fell from the door frame. Some monsters had already stuck their arms through the cracks on the side and were pushing against the shelves. One of them even tried to push its head through. That gate would only hold for a few minutes.
Kritzinev turned, pointed his rifle at us, and ordered us back to the storeroom. He clearly didn’t trust us and didn’t want us in the middle at that fight. I didn’t want any part of it either. The Pakistanis were chanting what sounded like a hymn of martyrdom in Arabic. Shafiq had tied a piece of green cloth around his head and seemed calmer.
I shook my head. Fuck. It was getting ugly. Two guys who aspired to martyrdom and a crazy, drunk Ukrainian. I waved Pritchenko back to the storeroom and desperately looked for a way out. There was nothing. No window or back door or vent! Nothing!
Once again, life wasn’t like the movies. There were no back doors or windows that opened onto vacant lots or secret tunnels or trapdoors. Just a grocery store with brick and concrete walls too thick to kick in. We were trapped.
Suddenly Pritchenko dragged me behind a counter. Above a heavy table was a trapdoor built into the wall. Leaning a chair against the table, I climbed up and slid the door open in the foolish hope of finding a tunnel out of there.
Toilet paper. Dozens and dozens of rolls of toilet paper and paper towels neatly stacked. This was where the owner had stored items that wouldn’t fit on the shelves. I frantically pulled down package after package of paper as we heard the first shots in the front of the store. The final assault was starting.
It only took thirty seconds to empty the whole storage area and another thirty seconds for us to climb inside a space that was claustrophobically small, but safe and hidden. We had a liter-and-a-half bottle of water, two flashlights, a chocolate bar, and my journal. Absolutely nothing else.
We stretched out a bit. Viktor fit perfectly; he’s only five foot two. I was a little cramped, but comfortable. A small hole in the door allowed us to breathe and gave us a partial view of the storeroom. All we could do was wait.
