The lightning was so bright that for a few seconds the whole horizon turned a sickly blue. Thunder rattled the SUV’s windows with a gruff, deep, terrifying rumble that lasted seven or eight seconds. Lightning and thunder followed each other about every minute and a half. The rain hadn’t broken yet, but the air had a strong smell of ozone. A helluva of a storm was coming.
Startled by the roar of the GL’s engine, a flock of crows and fat, glossy gulls flew up in the air. Over the months, I’ve learned to sort through all the haunting images, blocking out the ones that disturb me the most (too many, sadly). But I saw what those scavengers had been feeding on—another pile of lifeless bodies. The image of the half-decayed body of a little boy about three years old with empty eye sockets and pecked cheeks gut-punched me. I was fucking sick of being sick. True, all that bullshit is making me harder, but I can tell I’m getting crazier by the second.
According to the GPS, the county road abruptly intersected with a much wider and better-cared-for road half a mile from the hospital. The area was wooded; a dense mass of eucalyptus and pine trees was shaking wildly, whipped by the wind. The road was strewn with twigs, tree bark, and piles of rotting corpses. The undead had been through there in droves, but resistance must have been tough. I was coming to the scene of a disaster. I started to feel light-headed.
A half a dozen wobbly figures stepped out of the shadows, headed for our SUV. I couldn’t stay there any longer. I turned on to the main road and approached the hospital slowly, dodging fallen branches and the occasional passersby who tried unsuccessfully to claw the car.
Then, something caught my attention—a couple of undead wandering on the road, dressed in tattered hospital gowns. I shuddered with terror. If Meixoeiro Hospital was infested, we were really screwed.
I rounded the last bend in the road to the top of a small hill; from there I could see the hospital. I hit the brakes and stopped for a moment. I held my breath. Fuck.
Meixoeiro Hospital is a huge conglomeration of modern steel, glass, and cement, a gigantic maze built in several stages, with miles of corridors and rooms. It had been one of Galicia’s premier hospitals. It was cutting edge, equipped with the best, most modern human and technical resources. Thousands of people used that facility daily. A real temple of science, pride, and human health. Something to behold.
Now it looked like something out of a nightmare. Every window facing north was shattered. Torn, faded curtains stuck out of the dark recesses of those broken windows, flapping wildly in the wind. A sewer pipe on the fourth floor must have burst—dried, smelly black slime covered part of the wall.
What was really frightening was the total absence of light, sound, and movement. The huge building loomed up like a dark monolith, devoid of life. The tunnel to the emergency room was shrouded in shadows, like the entrance to a deep mine.
Around the building I could see evidence of hectic activity. Dozens of civilian cars, police cars, Civil Guard tanks, and ambulances sat abandoned every which way, many with their doors flung open. Some were covered with a rust-colored crust that could only be dried blood. Stretchers and medical equipment were scattered here and there, as if they’d set up a field hospital on the front lawn to take care of the overflow.
A city bus, its windows streaked with dried blood, was parked on the lawn, as if a drunk driver had left it there. On the rear doors of the bus you could see bloody palm prints. God only knows the story that bus could tell.
A double row of sandbags and concrete barriers surrounded the perimeter. Some places were reinforced, so I assumed they’d been checkpoints. As I’d seen on the road and so many places for miles around, shell casings and rotting corpses were everywhere. There were far fewer around the hospital than I expected, though.
I quickly corrected that thought. When the horde of undead arrived, the defenders must’ve been decimated, exhausted, almost out of ammunition. Those monsters easily overpowered them. Then came the carnage.
The bitter taste of bile filled my mouth. I pictured a hospital full of the wounded, refugees, medical personnel, women, children…then hundreds of these things broke in. Oh, blessed Christ.
The place was filled with pain, death, and despair. That dark, silent building was a huge grave…or worse. But we had to go in. Prit needed medical supplies.
I rolled the SUV up to the tunnel to the ER, virtually silently. Drenched in sweat, I looked in every direction, hesitating. On one hand, if I went in alone, I could move faster. If I ran into trouble, I could defend myself better. On the other hand, I didn’t dare leave Prit, semiconscious and alone, in the parking lot, at the mercy of those things, as I walked through the bowels of that building.
And besides, there was Lucullus. Fuck.
The
I calculated we were no more than twenty yards from the tunnel. I couldn’t go any farther in the SUV. Reinforced concrete blocks and lots of sandbags lying across the road made it impassable. In better days, a guard would’ve waved me on from a entry box a few yards to my left, but now it was abandoned. That empty landscape, lit up by lightning, gave me the creeps.
I put the backpack on and cinched the straps tight. Between Prit and Lucullus, I wasn’t going to be very mobile, so I distributed the weight as evenly as I could. I didn’t want all that weight to drag me to the ground right under an undead’s nose.
I took Lucullus out of his carrier and cradled him in my arms for a moment before setting off. My little furry friend purred happily, comfortable, dry, and warm on my lap, watching the rain fall. I scratched behind his ears, gazing at him fondly. Since he was a tiny ball of fur, he’d liked to curl up on the radiator and watch the rain fall in the garden.
The memory of my house, my life, my whole world, pierced my heart like a dagger. I missed my home. I missed my job, my friends, my life—but most of all I missed my family. I hadn’t heard from them in months, not to mention the ton of friends I have (had) all across Galicia. I’ve tried to keep my mind occupied with my own survival and not think too much. Every time I thought about my past, I tried to tell myself they were comfortably holed up in a Safe Haven, somewhere those monsters hadn’t reached.
Now I know that’s all a lie. Those monsters from beyond the grave are everywhere. There’s no safe place, and no one’s safe. All the survivors are drowning in a sea of suffering that goes on forever.
I could feel tears flooding my eyes. I took a deep breath, rubbed my face, and shook my head, trying to blank it all out. If I started crying, I wouldn’t be able to stop. If I collapsed, I was screwed. The survival instinct kicked in again. Something deep in my hypothalamus secreted enough endorphins to get me going. Still, the pain was buried deep inside me, oozing emotional pus. Someday, I’d have to face it and wrench it out of my heart. But not now. Not yet.
I pushed the door open cautiously, making as little noise as possible. As I stepped out of the car, a violent gust of wind blew a curtain of water in my face. The thunder and lightning overlapped each another. It was almost completely dark. I closed the door behind me and crouched down for a moment, my back to the SUV.
I didn’t see anything that looked threatening, but instinct was telling me just the opposite. To be honest, instinct screamed at me to get the fuck out of there.
About six yards in front of me, I could make out the half-decayed body of a civil guardsman in riot gear. His distinctive blue uniform had faded in the sun. In places it was a blackish oxidized color from bloodstains and body fluids. From the waist up, the body was a pile of torn, stinking flesh. No trace of the head.
I shrank back. I didn’t know if scavengers or the undead had disfigured that body, but it looked like the work of a demented butcher. I gagged but didn’t vomit. Amazing…I was getting more macho or deranged, depending on how you look at it. None of this shit affected me anymore.
I approached the body. Holding my breath, I pulled a shiny black pistol from the holster on his right hip. It was larger and heavier than the Glock, but I didn’t have time to study it any more than that. I unlaced the guy’s combat boots. His feet were black and rotten from fluids that had pooled there. It smelled really foul, so I hurried as fast as I could. When I’d pulled out the shoelaces, I had a cord about six feet long.
With the gun and shoelaces, I went back to the SUV, soaked to the skin. I grabbed the surprised Lucullus by
