Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

From the front room came the clatter of AK-47s and the howling of the undead. The gunfire grew more intense. Three guns firing simultaneously in a confined space made a lot of noise. We smelled the gunpowder. I don’t know what the firepower of those weapons is, but in such an enclosed space it had to be devastating.

But the enemy outnumbered them. After a couple of minutes we heard piercing howls, and one of the guns stopped firing. The fighting moved closer to the door. A crazed, bloodied Kritzinev appeared, walking backward. He threw down his AK-47 and drew the pistol at his waist. Pursued by at least a dozen of those creatures, the Ukrainian emptied the clip, but for every one that fell, two more appeared.

Kritzinev realized the battle was lost and pointed the gun at his temple. Before he could shoot, an obese young guy in a striped shirt, covered in dried blood from head to toe, bit his neck and tore off a piece of flesh the size of a fist. Kritzinev dropped the pistol, uttering a cry of pain and surprise with anger in his eyes as he disappeared under a mass of those creatures. I don’t want to replay the sounds we heard.

Twelve hours have passed. The shop is quiet and dark. Oil lamps lying on the floor have burned out. There’re no words to describe the smell. We can’t leave the crawl space because a few of those creatures are still here, walking in the shadows, relentless. We have no idea what to do.

ENTRY 69

March 11, 9:38 p.m.

The human mind is amazing. After more than twenty-four hours locked in a tiny storage space the size of a closet, with no lights and hardly any sound, I started to hallucinate. I was sure I heard a TV. I could even make out the ads. It was agonizing. I knew perfectly well they were just in my mind, but they sounded so real. Oh, God. I covered my ears, but I could still hear everything clearly.

That closet was my undoing. I was sliding down the slippery slope of madness. I couldn’t take any more fatigue, terror, and pent-up stress after seventy-two hours of light and food deprivation. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was suffocating in there. The walls were closing in on me; the space seemed even smaller, crushing, squeezing me. The darkness was thick as oil; even the air was dark. I couldn’t breathe; my lungs pumped air like crazy but got no oxygen. I was choking. I had to get out of there!

I scratched at the door, desperately groping for the handle. Then two hands, hard as steel, grabbed my arms. Pritchenko whispered something in Russian, trying to reassure me. He had immobilized me with the strength of a karate black belt. He didn’t let go until my breathing calmed down and I regained control. That fucking Ukrainian’s looks are deceiving. He’s so small, and his huge blond mustache covers half his mouth, but he has an iron spirit and amazing resilience. He hadn’t collapsed under pressure; I’d been about to send us both to hell in an attack of claustrophobia.

I started to cry in silence, like a real idiot. I’d had enough. We’d been shut up in that closet-size hole for an entire day. I was hungry, thirsty, and sleepy. I had excruciating cramps and was completely disoriented. It was fucking hell, but there was no neon sign pointing to the exit.

With all that movement, I’m sure we made some noise. Fortunately those monsters were making far more commotion as they moved around the wreckage in the storeroom, stumbling over fallen shelves and the remains of our team. For the moment, they hadn’t noticed us. I peered through the little hole in the door. All I could see was half of the storeroom and the hallway that led to the front of the store. A little light was coming through the front door.

I could see the shadows of at least eight of those things still in the room. I knew there were plenty more in front of the store and out in the street. Those bastards hadn’t left when they finished off Kritzinev and the Pakistanis. They just stayed out there, searching for something…or someone.

For the first few hours, that room was crowded with the monsters drawn by the gunfire. Now, something (instinct?) told them there was still fresh prey in the vicinity. As time passed, most lost interest and moved outside.

Somehow they knew there were humans nearby but they didn’t know exactly where. Was it the heat we gave off? Electromagnetic fields? Some other sense that eludes me? They restlessly prowled around, frustrated that they couldn’t find what they were sure was there.

For four terrifying hours, a tall, gangly monster with a big gash on his back stood in front of the crawl space, slamming his fists at the bottom of the sliding door and roaring. We froze. We thought that bastard had discovered us, and that was the end of the line. But finally the guy lost interest and went back to wandering around the room, then retreated to God knows where.

Those things are strong and have a kind of sixth sense, but they aren’t very smart or persevering. Their coordination and ability to concentrate are limited; their motor skills are worse. After a while, they seem to get bored or distracted, except when a strong stimulus, usually a human, gets their attention. Then they’re relentless.

All this is just a guess. To my knowledge, nobody has any idea of how those creatures think. The epidemic spread too fast for anyone to do any scientific studies. If anyone is doing research in a bunker somewhere, he must be miles underground. A lot of good that’ll do us, surrounded by them.

And it wouldn’t fix my hallucinations: I thought I heard a siren.

Pritchenko squeezed my arms so hard I nearly howled in pain. He’d heard it too! It wasn’t a hallucination!

There were three long blasts, a pause, and three more long blasts. It was the hoarse, deep sound made by a powerful steam turbine coming from far off. A ship’s horn! The Zaren Kibish. Ushakov was trying to contact us. He must be getting worried, wondering what was taking us so long. We needed to answer, let him know we were alive. But that would have to wait.

The siren riveted the monsters packed inside the store. The room emptied out as they stumbled out the door, one by one, headed for that new sound only a human being—prey!—could make.

All but one. For some reason, an undead woman in her fifties wearing sparkly earrings, her face streaked with makeup and dirt, kept walking around in the storeroom. Maybe she detected human prey more intensely than the others. Or maybe she was dull-witted. Who can say? She just stood there watching, waiting. This was the chance we were waiting for. Pritchenko and I didn’t have to say a word. I shoved the sliding door aside and jumped onto the counter, Prit following.

The woman looked up, surprised. With a mad roar, she walked toward us, dodging the mangled remains of furniture and rotting corpses on the ground.

I tried to stand up, but my legs didn’t respond after a whole day tucked into that tiny crawl space. I just couldn’t get up. There was an unpleasant tingling in my legs as circulation was restored, but for all intents and purposes, I was helpless as a puppy.

Again Pritchenko rose to the occasion, drawing strength from somewhere. He crawled forward and grabbed the empty AK-47 Kritzinev had thrown down before he died. Using the rifle as a cane to help him stand up, he leaned against the wall, then grabbed the rifle by the barrel like a club and squared off against that harpy, whose breathing whistled softly between her teeth. That guy sure had some balls.

Prit didn’t have to wait for that creature’s response. She wobbled toward him. When she was within reach, he raised the AK-47 over his head and brought it down with all his might against the woman’s skull.

There was a loud crack as her skull split open, exposing her dark, infected brains. She rocked back and forth and staggered. Pritchenko leveled a second blow. Her head burst like a ripe melon and she fell to the ground. He bent over her, hitting her skull again and again until it was a mass of red pulp.

I struggled to my feet and grabbed Viktor’s shoulders as he gave the corpse the umpteenth blow. He had a maniacal look in his eyes and that woman’s brains all over his arms and chest. When he felt my hands, he spun around like a cobra. For a moment I thought he was going to whack me too.

His expression slowly returned to normal. Finally his weak legs couldn’t hold him any longer and he collapsed to the floor, dragging me down with him. Now he was the one sobbing convulsively, venting the tension that had built up over the last twenty-four hours, as adrenaline roared through his veins.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and helped him sit up. We didn’t have much time. We had to get