Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

uneasy, I studied the Ukrainian as we got back under way.

The VNT office was just around the corner. I was sick of it all. I wanted to get out of this damn city as fast as I could.

Fifteen minutes later, we were surveying the wide street that stretched out before us. Plastic bags fluttered wildly on hot, thick air from one end of the street to the other while dust swirled in intricate patterns. Separating the two lanes was a median where nature was urgently reclaiming its place. The flowering plants that once grew there had succumbed to weeds. Vines, ferns, and brambles coiled around trees no one would prune again. Shoots of grass were poking up through cracks in the pavement.

Dozens of vehicles were parked on the shoulder or abandoned in the road. There were a lot of cars, some vans, and even a couple of huge, heavy trucks. The cab of a monstrous eighteen-wheeler was embedded in the window of a women’s clothing store. Dried blood trailed from the driver’s door.

Tattered curtains flapped through open windows. Windows in every building were shattered, and the pavement was covered by a thick layer of broken glass. The huge explosion at the port must have blown out all those windows.

There was no sign of life apart from dozens of rats and countless gulls hovering overhead. It’s funny. Since all this began, I’ve seen dogs, cats (my Lucullus), rats, and gulls, but not a single pigeon or horse or sparrow or any other animal. I wonder if this epidemic affects other living beings. One more question to add to the growing list.

Prit and I had taken up a position on the cab of a massive dump truck. It had a busted windshield and four flat tires and was parked partway up on the sidewalk on the corner. It had a perfect view of the street.

There wasn’t a single monster around, but drag marks in the dust on the pavement were unmistakable. We spotted a few tottering figures about two hundred yards away, at the far end of the road. Too far for them to see us, but still too close.

The ground was covered with trash and dirt, along with dozens of rotting corpses, all with gunshot wounds. Pritchenko thought they were the undead killed by the raiding parties from the Safe Haven. I didn’t know what to think. I was starting to suspect that the collapse of law and order in large cities like Vigo had been more terrible and chaotic than in small towns. Thousands of civilian sightings of the undead must’ve overwhelmed the security forces. Then it was every man for himself. Those bodies might be proof of that.

Across the street was VNT’s home office. It was in a mediumsize building with a glass door and a huge window on one side, where the offices were located. On the other side, a large black metal gate with the company’s gold logo painted on it sealed off the van parking garage. The place appeared to be closed up tight and deserted.

In the back of the eighteen-wheeler was a huge load of building materials. On its last trip, they must’ve been planning to install a pipeline; about fifteen PVC pipes, four inches in diameter, were stacked in the truck bed. Behind the cab were a number of tools, including a crowbar. We could use that to open the office door.

Several months ago, our firm defended a small-time thief. He gave us a detailed lesson in the art of breaking and entering. The guy was a real pro who’d been caught in flagrante after he’d cleaned out at least a dozen apartments, so we couldn’t get him off. He was probably in jail when all this hell began. I wonder what’s happened to that poor thief, and everyone locked up in prison. I shudder at the image of entire wings of starving prisoners. Even though they were criminals, I hoped at least some of them survived.

Grabbing the crowbar with both hands, I quietly crossed the road, Pritchenko on my heels, to try out what the thief had taught me. Knowledge never goes to waste.

It was easier than I expected. I struggled briefly and took a couple of chips out of the door frame. Then the door sprung open with a loud crack that chilled me to the bone. The sound probably didn’t carry more than ten yards, but in that silence it sounded like a gunshot.

We entered the lobby of VNT. We’d reached our destination at last. The customer service department was located behind a wooden counter, badly scratched by countless packages sliding across it. In one corner sat the dust-covered skeleton of a houseplant. Months-old newspapers and magazines were piled on a coffee table framed by two armchairs. The stale smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air, faint but perceptible. Someone in that office had smoked a lot, although nobody had lit a cigarette there for a long time.

That wasn’t the only odor. Partly masked by the smell of cigarette smoke was the intense, sickening smell of decay. The smell of death.

Prit and I were immediately on alert. Brandishing the butcher knife, I inched up the swinging door that led to the back of the store. Prit stationed himself in front of the door, aiming Kritzinev’s assault rifle. Sweating like crazy, I looked over at him. At his signal, I kicked the door open and leaped aside, giving him a clear shot.

I cringed, bracing myself for the blast of the weapon, but all I heard was Ukrainian’s ragged breathing. I looked over and saw Prit’s expression change. I turned around to see what he was staring at. I gagged as vomit surged up my throat.

A half-rotten corpse hung by a rope from a ceiling. The guy had looped the rope around his neck and hanged himself. He wore VNT overalls rolled down to his waist. The maggots covering his face looked like a beard.

It was a revolting sight. The body was decaying, and a stream of smelly liquid dripped from his body, forming a thick, dark puddle. The body was swollen with gas and looked obscenely fat. A thick purple tongue stuck out of his open mouth; dozens of green flies were buzzing around it. His eyes had receded into their sockets, and his swollen, bruised fingers looked like a cartoon character’s fingers after he’d been crushed. The stench was awful. Pritchenko and I covered our noses and mouths and went in, trying not to look at that grim spectacle or brush up against him. A quick look around the store told the whole story.

That poor guy had been stuck there from the beginning. He must’ve seen the first undead go staggering down the street. He reacted like most people: he locked himself in until help arrived. Unfortunately for him, help never came. That was the start of that poor devil’s personal hell. An empty snack machine, its glass broken, was proof that his only source of food soon grew scarce. Dirty laundry and some well-thumbed girlie magazines were piled up on the floor. He had sense enough to use one of the vans as the john and drink the water in the toilet, but that must’ve run out too. Poor bastard. After a while, he just couldn’t take the hunger, thirst, loneliness, and madness any more.

I shuddered to think I could’ve met the same end if I hadn’t left my house. I shook my head to drive away those dark thoughts. There was no time to grieve for a stranger. We had to look for the damn package.

And we found it—a black steel Samsonite briefcase, sealed with red plastic tape. Prit and I spent the afternoon in the stifling heat, digging around in that damn store, but we finally found it.

I can’t believe we’ve got the package. Thoughts whirled through my mind as we decided what our next move would be. My first impulse was to try to open the damn case to see what was inside. But a reinforced steel Samsonite briefcase wouldn’t be easy to break into, even if I did what that thief taught me. Only the key holder or a real thief could open it. Unfortunately Prit and I don’t qualify as either.

We got used to the smell of rotting flesh after a while. I suggested we take down the body and wrap it in a blanket, but the Ukrainian talked me out of it. Given the condition of the corpse, it’d probably burst in our arms and shower us with rotting guts. Better leave it there, in his words, “drying like a cured ham.” I was creeped out, wondering where the hell he’d learned that, but I didn’t ask.

I’ve saved the best for last. That Ukrainian is full of surprises. What I learned about him today amazed me.

While I was rummaging through an office drawer, looking for the keys to some cabinets at the back of the store, I absentmindedly set some government forms to one side and opened another drawer. Just then Pritchenko walked into the office and collapsed in the desk chair, stretching and yawning loudly. His eye fell on the forms lying on the table. He casually pronounced one word: “Siunten.”

I stopped in my tracks. I looked at the Ukrainian’s impassive face and his huge blond mustache and then at the forms on the table. I couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Siunten? Siunten?” I asked, excited, pointing to the forms. “Is this Siunten?”

“Da, yes,” Prit replied, surprised at my reaction.

I had good reason to be surprised. Those forms weren’t important. The really interesting part was the logo in the corner of the file folder.

“Siunten” was Pritchenko’s distorted Slavic version of Xunta. The Xunta de Galicia. The Galician government.