out of that hellhole right away. Regaining his composure, Prit sniffed loudly and picked up Kritzinev’s gun. He said wearily, “We’re finally out of the closet.”
I burst out laughing as the Ukrainian gazed at me, wondering what had gotten into me. Every time I tried to stop laughing, the puzzled look on Pritchenko’s face made me laugh even harder. With tears in my eyes, I explained the slang meaning of what he’d said. Then the Ukrainian laughed too. That was liberating. For the first time in weeks, we laughed uncontrollably, as stress flowed out of us. Any silly comment would set us off again. It was fantastic. We were still human. We were still alive. We could still put up a fight.
We didn’t glean much from the gruesome scene. Kritzinev’s pistol was our only weapon. We found the AK- 47s, but couldn’t locate the ammunition. Usman and Shafiq had had the ammunition belts, but there was no sign of them. They were probably wandering around, mutants now, packing dozens of rounds of ammunition. Fuck.
Before we left, I bent over Kritzinev’s corpse. The undead’s fury had been over the top; they’d ripped the poor bastard’s body to shreds. There was no way he was coming back to life. Part of his brain was missing; an arm and both legs and his stomach were torn apart as if a wild animal had attacked him. What a gruesome death. I reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the bloodstained receipt. I hadn’t forgotten about that fucking package. It was the only way I’d get Lucullus back.
We left the store, stepping around a huge mound of putrid bodies piled up at the door. The sun was blinding. As Pritchenko and I walked out of the store, I glanced around. I saw a couple of those things about four hundred yards away. They’d spotted us and were heading our way. Time to get a move on.
We ran up the street, limping, drained from lack of food and water. We wouldn’t get far in that shape. As we walked along the deserted street, more and more of those things came out of unexpected places to join the chase. Thousands of them! They were closing in on us.
Suddenly Pritchenko and I stopped dead in our tracks. Spread out before us was a gruesome scene. We were at the edge of a swath of Vigo charred by fires that had raged out of control. I’d seen those fires from the
This was our chance. Prit and I climbed onto the ruins, crawling over piles of rubble and twisted, blackened beams. The undead couldn’t follow us into this shattered land. They weren’t coordinated enough to climb that rubble. That landscape looked as dead as the moon, riddled with holes, covered with beams, piles of rubble and mangled remains. It wasn’t much easier for us, given the shape we were in, but the important thing was, we could climb and they couldn’t.
After twenty minutes of wandering around in that hell, Pritchenko and I collapsed, panting, into a deep hole in the middle of the devastation. At the bottom of that hole was a large pool of rainwater. We drank like camels, then lay down to catch our breath, with the sun on our faces and a breeze in our hair. Spring had arrived in all its glory. We were glad to be alive.
ENTRY 70
I’m sitting next to a small campfire. A tasty chicken vegetable soup is bubbling away. Across the flames, I can see Pritchenko’s familiar silhouette wrapped in a blanket, snoring so loud he could wake the dead. For the first time in weeks, I’m in such a good mood I can even joke about this.
Yesterday we left that burned zone after languishing there for three days. Prit and I were completely exhausted. Fortunately, the Ukrainian had quickly spotted a place to take shelter and recuperate, which undoubtedly saved our lives.
It was hot at the bottom of that hollow. The sun in a cloudless sky beat down mercilessly as we lay like lizards next to a pool of rainwater that was evaporating before our eyes in that stifling heat. It was so hot the air vibrated. Debris seemed to tremble. The silence was complete, broken only by occasional snaps and pops from the ruins and crumbling buildings and the drone of flies. Once we heard dogs barking in the distance, but the barking stopped after a few minutes.
Prit and I tried to build a tent out of a torn sheet, but we had nothing to prop it up with. We were too weak to perform any feats of engineering.
Bottom line, our situation was pitiful. We were alone, essentially unarmed, lost in an abandoned, half- destroyed city, exhausted, hungry, with just dirty water to drink, surrounded by thousands of undead. Not exactly a tropical vacation.
We were sweating like pigs in that torrid heat. I walked to the edge of the puddle of water, made a bowl with my hands, and drank some water. I smiled ruefully at my reflection. Pritchenko and I looked strikingly alike. After all we’d been through, we both had beards; our hair was matted and dirty; our clothes (in my case, a swimsuit and a ragged shirt, since I’d stripped off my wetsuit in the storeroom) were in tatters; our skin was greasy and smeared with soot; our hands were dirty; our nails were broken; we had that sharp, bony, hungry look and, I suppose, a foul smell. A beggar from before the apocalypse would look like a movie star next to us.
I told Prit that if a client could see me like this, he wouldn’t recognize me. Laughing, he said that Siunten probably wouldn’t hire him looking like that.
A while back, I’d considered asking him what the hell Siunten was. That company didn’t sound familiar. I hardly knew anything about my friend, except that we’d spent three terrifying days together, and twice he’d saved my life. Just as I started to ask, the
That hoarse blast spread throughout the city. It’s amazing how sounds travel in absolute silence. We city dwellers are surrounded by thousands of sounds, so we don’t realize that. In such silent surroundings, the sound of an engine or a radio could be heard miles away. They probably heard the ship’s horn all over Vigo and in neighboring towns. The fools on the
We had to move on. If we stayed where we were, we’d starve or die of sunstroke or God knows what. My questions for Pritchenko would have to wait. We dragged ourselves to our feet and crawled back over all the rubble and the charred remains of cars and buildings.
The smell of burned flesh hung over everything. Occasionally we saw piles of scorched bodies, but there was no way to tell if they’d been humans or undead, trapped in the voracious fires that devoured parts of the city.
I was stopped in my tracks by the terrifying thought that the VNT office might’ve been burned to the ground. If it was, we could kiss that mysterious package good-bye unless it’d been wrapped in an asbestos box. I tried to calm down. I reminded myself that when I scanned the city from the
As the afternoon wore on, the temperature dropped. Soon Prit and I were shivering. Spring nights in Galicia can be chilly, no matter how hot the days are.
Prit and I hesitated at the edge of the burned-out zone. Before us stretched a wide two-lane street covered with dust, dirt, and soot, but unscathed. Maybe because of rain or a sudden change in the wind, the fire had stopped there and hadn’t continued down the street, devouring the city. From that point on, the rest of Vigo was intact, but dirty, abandoned, and infested with undead. Walking among the ruins had been torturously slow and difficult, but at least we were sure we wouldn’t encounter any undead. Now the road would be easier, but considerably more dangerous.
We had no choice. We stepped on to the street, trying to pass unnoticed. I couldn’t read the street sign; it was covered in soot. Night was falling, and the light was fading.
Although we were just a few blocks from the VNT offices, we had to stop and hide. It would be suicide to walk around, unarmed and unable to see where we were, in an unfamiliar area infested with those creatures. We hadn’t come this far just to fuck up as we turned a corner. Plus, we’d pass out if we didn’t get something to eat. Our growling stomachs would scare a bear.
Suddenly, a smile lit up Pritchenko’s face. He stopped and pointed. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was turning
