Dark Days

“That’s bad, right?”

“Worse than bad. It’s catastrophic. Without fuel we lose all our technological advantage. No more airplanes, helicopters, boats, or cars. We’d have to go back to the candle and the horse. We would almost surely starve to death.”

“Why not sail over to Nigeria or Venezuela, connect a pump, and load more fuel?”

“It’s not that easy. When the chaos spread, many oil-producing countries sealed their wells. With no staff to run them, they were time bombs. Corporations shut down all Venezuelan and Mexican wells, but in Nigeria, no precautions were taken. Aerial reconnaissance shows that many wells have exploded, creating large oil spills. As for the pipelines… after a year with no one to service them, they’re just scrap metal.”

She swallowed cigarette smoke and glanced at me over her shoulder.

“Even if the wells were in good condition, operating the way they did before the Apocalypse, it would be impossible to pump anything out of them without deploying a huge security team who’d face who knows how many thousands of Undead in order to protect the technicians… if we had any technicians. They’d have to repair oil rigs with materials we also don’t have so they could pump crude through a pipeline that hasn’t been serviced in over a year, to a ninety-thousand-ton ship we can’t get to without the help of an experienced pilot who’s familiar with those waters, and without an army of tugboats to position it in a pumping station we’re not sure still exists. So, you see, it’s not that easy.”

“What about the Persian Gulf? It’s farther away, but that huge ship could make it there easily. Besides, ships there are loaded at sea through hoses that…”

“Nothing’s left in the Persian Gulf. Know who the Wahhabis are?”

I shook my head, bewildered. The situation looked bleaker and bleaker.

“They’re an ultrareligious branch of Islam in the Gulf that advocates a literal interpretation of the Koran and Sharia Law. The Middle East was one of the first areas hit by TSJ, since it’s so close to Dagestan. During the last weeks before worldwide collapse, the Wahhabis proclaimed that TSJ was God’s punishment for mankind’s greed and wickedness, and the only way to escape death and the horrible fate of the TSJ virus was through acts of purification. Money had corrupted mankind’s soul, and returning to a primitive purity was the only way to save civilization. Oil had flooded the Middle East with money, which, in turn, flooded the area with corruption and lack of faith. On the path to purification and salvation, fanatical mobs attacked and destroyed every one of the oil rigs in the Gulf, beseeching Allah to rid them of the infection.”

“That means…”

“That means hundreds of oil wells in the Gulf are still burning over a year later. The Middle East is not the answer. If we don’t find a solution soon, we’ll go from being screwed to being really and truly screwed. A new Dark Ages is right around the corner.”

I shook my head, overwhelmed. I realized that the golden paradise I’d pictured the Canaries to be, the oasis I’d dreamed about all those dark months, was actually a poor, desperate, besieged place where daily life was a struggle. I wondered what would become of me, and my friends. But then an obvious question flashed in my mind.

“I’m very grateful for your welcome, for catching me up, and taking care of all that paperwork, but one question keeps running around in my head. Why me? Why the hell’re you telling me this?”

“Because we have a serious problem,” she replied with a strange smile. “And we believe you and Mr. Pritchenko can help us solve it.”

16

For a second, I thought I’d heard her wrong. I was stunned by that last sentence.

“Prit and me? Why the hell do you need our help?”

“It can’t be any clearer. Mr. Pritchenko is a helicopter pilot with thousands of flight hours under his belt, many of those hours in combat, not to mention flying a helicopter from the mainland to the Canary Islands. He’s not only valuable to the community, but a gift that literally fell out of the sky.”

“What about me? Where do I figure in all this? I’m just a lawyer, or I was before civilization collapsed. I don’t think my knowledge and experience will help get an oil well. And if you’re thinking of suing the Undead, I strongly advise against it. I don’t think they’re solvent. If you ask me, they won’t even appear in court.”

“Cut the crap!” Alicia cut me off. “I said we need you for your skills, not your jokes. You survived out there longer than any of our raiding parties. I don’t know if you’re skilled or just lucky. Mr. Pritchenko is one of the most valuable professionals today. We need you badly—both of you.”

“I can see how you need Prit. But after everything we’ve been through, neither of us wants to leave this island for a very, very long time. We’re mentally and physically exhausted. All we want is a safe place to live and work, away from those creatures. And,” I added, still the comedian, “I still don’t see why you need an attorney.”

“Oh! You’ve got it wrong.” Alicia seemed genuinely surprised. She shook her head and said softly, “It isn’t the government that needs an attorney.”

“What do you mean? So, who the hell…”

“It’s Mr. Pritchenko who needs your help.” Alicia slowly strung out her words. “And I hope you’re really good at your job, because he’s really going to need your help.”

For a moment, I was too stunned to speak. I wouldn’t have been more surprised if they’d told me to take a bite of the Galicia’s radar antenna. I didn’t understand a thing.

“Prit? My help? What the fuck?”

“At 9:45 this morning, Mr. Viktor Pritchenko was being led from his cell to the examining room to discharge him from quarantine and provide him with documentation for residency, like yours.” Alicia had a stern look on her face. “In one of the corridors, he crossed paths with another member of your group, Sister Cecilia Iglesias, headed for the same place. Suddenly, without a word, Mr. Pritchenko grabbed the guard’s billy club and, before guards could subdue him, beat Sister Cecilia on the head, leaving her senseless on the ground.”

I staggered as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Prit assault Sister Cecilia? No way! There must be a mistake. My Slavic friend sincerely venerated that smiling, plucky, vivacious nun, who’d comforted him and guided him out of the deep well of depression with long conversations and loads of understanding. Attack her? That was totally ridiculous.

“I regret to inform you that Sister Cecilia is in a coma in the infirmary onboard and may die from her injuries in the next seventy-two hours.”

“There must be a mistake,” I said, in the calmest tone I could summon. “Prit loves that woman like his mother. That can’t possibly be true.”

“I’m sure it’s hard to accept, but the facts are irrefutable,” Alicia replied, with a sad note in her voice. “The three security guards escorting them were eyewitnesses. One of them is the head guard, a man we have complete confidence in. There’s no discrepancy in their stories.”

Prit, a murderer. Impossible. I needed to see him and find out what the hell happened. Once again I was trapped in the jaws of a situation that was out of my control. The last time I felt like that was on another ship, the Zaren Kibish, a thousand years ago. Captain Pons’s eyes were boring into me. My mind was racing to come up with a plan.

“You want Prit’s and my help? For starters, take me to him now. Not tomorrow, not in ten minutes, not when you get around to it. I need to see my friend, now.”

“Of course,” Alicia said, a bit cowed by my reaction. “Follow me.”

We walked down a narrow staircase to a locked room where two grim-faced officers stood guard. Once inside, I stood there petrified. My friend lay in a corner, shirtless, covered with bruises. Prit’s right eye was swollen shut, he had a fat lip, and his mustache was caked with blood.

When he saw me, the Ukrainian rose, limping. He looked shattered.

“Prit! What the hell’d they do to you? You okay?” I probed his sides for broken ribs.

“Listen,” he said between coughs. “I don’t know what they told you, but I didn’t do anything! Hear me?” He clutched my sleeve. “Don’t believe a word they say!”