However, the bus Lucia’s parents were on never reached its destination. Along the way, it mysteriously disappeared. Everyone feared the worst. Back then, attacks on the Safe Haven were getting worse as the undead swarmed everywhere.
Lucia nearly went crazy with despair. Alone, not knowing her parents’ fate, she was enveloped by the quagmire at the Safe Haven, crammed into a frozen-food warehouse along with three hundred other people. She decided to find her family. She reasoned that if they weren’t at the Safe Haven, the only other place they could be was Meixoeiro Hospital. So as rations dwindled and they recruited volunteers for reconnaissance groups, she was one of the first to sign up.
They issued her a camouflage jacket several sizes too big and heavy combat boots, but no weapons. There weren’t enough to go around, ammunition was getting scarce, and her frail appearance didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the officer in charge. So she served as a porter. When the team reached its objective, one group secured the perimeter while another group raided the place. The porters had to drag out many pounds of nonperishable food and any other useful items they came across.
Lucia spent three grueling weeks cheating death on every outing. She saw half a dozen members of her team die. She was nearly caught once by an undead crouched down in a warehouse. But she still went out, day after day, waiting for her chance.
Finally, she got that chance. When she calculated that that day’s objective was relatively close to Meixoeiro Hospital, she slipped away from the group and started walking down the road toward the hospital. That was the most frightening forty-eight hours of her life. At night she hid anywhere that was high and inaccessible. At first light she started out again, dodging the undead, forced to spend long stretches of time in hiding, waiting for her predators to move on.
When she finally reached the hospital, the soldiers were dumbfounded. For weeks they hadn’t seen a single soul in the area, apart from the throngs of undead that wandered their way. The sight of that young girl, dressed like a soldier, walking up in search of her parents was disconcerting.
That brave girl was devastated to learn the hospital had no record of her parents. She realized she was completely alone. She didn’t know what to do next.
But the worst was yet to come. The presence of a pretty young girl among a group of isolated, brutalized young men created sexual tension. More and more fights broke out among those soldiers, whose nerves were on edge. One night, one of the soldiers got drunk off his ass and tried to rape her. Fortunately, one of the doctors stopped the guy just in time with a well-aimed blow to the head, but the situation was out of control.
The lieutenant in charge ordered Lucia and Sister Cecilia to remain in Numantia. They weren’t to leave for any reason. Outraged protests from the sister and Lucia did no good. The lieutenant was old school. He didn’t want women fraternizing with the men under his command. End of story. For a couple of weeks, they worked as cooks and helped out the doctors on the upper floors. Meanwhile patients died one by one of their grave illnesses, since the doctors lacked specialized drugs and couldn’t perform any kind of surgery. All the defensive team could do was wait.
But not for long. A couple of nights later, they lost radio contact with the Safe Haven. Hundreds of undead began to gather around the hospital. Instead of trying to fly under the radar, the lieutenant, an empty-headed, power-hungry idiot, ordered the soldiers to fire at will. The
In the end, the undead managed to get in. Neither Sister Cecilia nor Lucia could explain how. They were entrenched in the basement as the drama unfolded above their heads. All they knew was that one of the soldiers, a very young, scared boy with a strong Andalusian accent, stuck his head in to Numantia and warned them to lock the door from inside.
For a couple of hours they heard shooting outside, explosions around the hospital complex, and then a bomb. The shooting soon ringed the interior corridors of the hospital. Then it stopped altogether. For two hours, the nun and the girl waited for someone to come tell them the fighting was over. No one ever showed up.
Steeling herself, Lucia took a risk and left Numantia to find out what had happened to the soldiers. She saw what Pritchenko and I found months later. Empty corridors, evidence of fighting everywhere, and not a single living being.
Since then, the two women have lived in that basement, protected from the outside. They had light, water, and food, and were safe from the undead. What they didn’t have was a clear idea of what the devil to do next. They knew the odds were not in their favor on the outside. On their own, they wouldn’t get very far. They concluded that their best option was to wait for the rescue party.
But all that showed up were two tired, injured, hungry, disoriented survivors. And a cat. Our arrival and the news from outside brought a mixture of horror and hope—horror at discovering there was nothing left of the civilization they knew; hope that, because of us, there was finally a solution to this complex situation.
Prit is a whole lot better. The minute we walked through the door, Sister Cecilia took him under her wing like a mother hen shelters her chick. Not only did she mend his shattered left hand with remarkable skill (although there was nothing she could do about his missing fingers), she also drew the Ukrainian out of the debilitating depression he’d sunk into. She diagnosed both of us as being shell shocked. It’s curable. Normally, a couple of weeks in a safe, quiet, stress-free environment alleviates it, but sometimes the sufferer never recovers.
Fortunately, Prit wasn’t one of those cases. His zest for life is too strong for a little thing like a nervous breakdown to get the best of him. I’ve seen his outlook slowly grow more positive. I’m sure the long talks he’s had with Sister Cecilia well into the night have contributed to his recovery. The nun and the Ukrainian have forged a close friendship based on trust.
Like many Slavs, Prit’s a devout Christian. Although Sister Cecilia’s Catholic and he’s Orthodox, her presence has comforted him deeply. During those long talks, he must have tried to make sense of this hell. Why did he lose his wife and child? Why did God unleash this catastrophe? I don’t know if he found any answers, but his search has been a balm for his wounded soul. Something inside his heart is broken forever, that’s for sure. Now at least he’s learning to live with the pain.
For my part, I prefer not to ponder it. Every minute of the day, I wonder what happened to my family. Damn, I never thought I could miss anyone in such an intense, hopeless way. It’s highly likely they’re mutants, I know, but I refuse to accept it.
I’ve had the same nightmare for weeks. I’m walking down a dark corridor. I can hear the sea splashing against one wall, but it doesn’t smell like the sea. It smells like something rotting. The corridor is littered with trash and shell casings. The walls are stained with something that looks like shit, but I know it’s dried blood. Suddenly, my sister and my parents come out of a door. They’ve been turned into those things. They walk toward me with blind eyes, after my blood. I’m armed in my dream, but I can’t raise my gun, and then…then I wake up, deeply upset, with an urge to throw up.
Undoubtedly, those who have changed into those creatures are in hell, but we survivors are living pretty close to that hell.
ENTRY 85
Yesterday afternoon, Prit and I were standing in the elevator shaft, discussing the fastest way to reach the SUV. We agreed we should drive it around to our exit in case we needed it in an emergency. Moving it from time to time it would also keep it in running condition. Winter was coming, and I was afraid the cold weather would damage the starter.
In the middle of our conversation, the Ukrainian straightened up suddenly, sniffing the air nervously like a retriever, with an intensely focused look on his face.
“Smell that?” he asked.
“Smell what?” I said. After nine months surrounded by trash and slowly rotting corpses, my sense of smell wasn’t as keen as it used to be.
“Fire,” Prit said as he closed his eyes and sniffed the air eagerly. His eyes flew open, boring into me.
