with their families. Most were mechanics, engineers, highly skilled construction workers, electricians, even a vet, with all the skills essential to the community’s survival.
We were assigned three adjoining rooms on the fifth floor. There was electricity for only six hours a day, from six pm till midnight, which proved to be a real pain in the ass. With no elevator, we had to trudge up all those flights of stairs.
Fortunately, the previous tenants had torn down the walls, connecting the rooms into an apartment. The rooms were dingy but clean, and there was running water, just no hot water. When the electricity was on, we could pick up the signal from the island’s TV station on the television screwed to the wall above the bed. All in all, things were okay.
The downside was, in twenty days, Prit and I had to report to a “special work group” at a barracks downtown. Something told me we weren’t going to like that “special work” one bit.
19
Hard to believe we’d only been on the islands for a few weeks and were already mixed up in a bad situation! I was so angry I wanted to scream. In frustration, I kicked a trash can as we were walking out of the office and sent it rolling down some stairs, making a shitload of noise. All that got me was a glare from a secretary and a sore foot.
We’d had a few short, happy weeks of vacation. We relaxed, gorged ourselves, slept like the dead, and baked on the beach. Then one morning, a messenger came to our home with a summons for Prit and me. At noon we were to report to the former headquarters of MALCAN, the command center and logistic support group on the islands, in Weyler Plaza downtown. Dozing beside Lucia, I could hear Prit arguing with the guy in the next room. He finally gave up and signed the receipt. I got up, my hair standing on end, my eyes bloodshot, and found my friend with a worried look on his face. That couldn’t be good.
“What the hell’d that guy want?” I asked, as I filled the coffeepot with the vile stuff they called coffee.
“See for yourself,” the Ukrainian muttered, holding out the paper. “They want us to start earning our keep.”
After breakfast and a shower, we headed out, our stomachs in knots. We weren’t sure what they wanted from us. To say we had our guard up was putting it mildly.
A beat-up URO was parked in front of the old hotel. At the wheel was a young kid, barely eighteen, in an ill- fitting uniform. I’d have bet a million euros that boy had just enlisted. He’d probably been a refugee like us just months before. During the first weeks of the Apocalypse, the military took a huge hit as it tried to defend the Safe Havens. Now they filled the gaps in their ranks with anyone they could find.
After five minutes on the road, it became clear the kid had little experience driving a heavy vehicle the size of a URO. He lurched through the crowded streets, laying on the horn like a Cairo taxi driver at rush hour, nonchalantly whizzing past cars, trucks, and pedestrians. He even drove up on the sidewalk. Every time he shifted, it sounded like he was going to rip the transmission to shreds. Forty minutes later, we miraculously reached Weyler Plaza in one piece.
When Prit and I looked around, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Most of the historic, art nouveau buildings that surrounded the plaza had been burned to some degree. Their walls were pockmarked by shrapnel and bullet holes, a sure sign the area had been the scene of a fierce battle. I wordlessly pointed to a dark black spot that stained the ground under our feet like a sinister carpet. Prit reached down, scratched the surface, and took an expert sniff. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Napalm.”
The building was packed with office workers running around, doing God-knows-what. They kept us waiting for a long time in a small room decorated with the flags of dozens of regiments that probably no longer existed except in memory. By the time a sergeant finally hurried us into an office, the sun was high in the sky.
A bald, pudgy little guy who looked to be pushing fifty sat at a desk. His black goatee stood out against his pasty white skin and bobbed up and down as he talked. He wasn’t wearing a uniform—surprising since up till then, we were the only people we’d seen in street clothes. He was talking a blue streak on two phones at once as his hands flew over a computer keyboard. Beside him, one assistant held a ton of folders, while another madly rifled through documents piled on a side table. People streamed in and out of that office in a systematic way like a well-organized anthill. The guy motioned for Pritchenko and me to sit in chairs in front of his desk, but kept on barking orders into the phone.
As we waited for that guy to finish all his conversations, I checked out the mess piled around him. Most of the folders bore the seal of the Second Operational Quartermaster Corps, a unit I’d never heard of before. From what the guy was yelling into the phone, I surmised that that building was the unit’s administrative headquarters.
Our host brusquely introduced himself as “Luis Viena, administrative head of the Second Quartermaster Corps” then went back to arguing with someone at the other end of the line about acquiring several hundred liters of helicopter fuel. He wanted the fuel immediately and the person on the other end of the line was refusing to provide it. He finally reached an agreement, citing something called “Presidential Priority,” then hung up looking pleased with himself.
He sat there, lost in thought for a few long seconds. Then he blinked, pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his sweaty brow, and turned to us with a broad smile on his face.
“Good morning, good morning.” His words poured out in a torrent. “I’m very sorry to keep you waiting so long, but organizing an operation of this size is difficult, very difficult, yes sir, especially with so few resources and the staff… the
Prit and I kept our mouths shut. That hyperactive little man stood up, still ranting, as he rummaged around in a file cabinet. Finally he found folders with our names on them and turned toward us, triumphant, waving the folders as if they were fans.
“Organization. Organization and a system,” he said proudly. “Those are the keys, yes sir.” He rattled on as he sat back down, distractedly extracted some reports from the mountain of papers piled on his desk, then stuffed them into the folders he was holding.
He read our names aloud and, for the next ten minutes, delved into our considerably thick files. Occasionally he let out an “uh-huh” or an “ah-ha” and even a couple of surprised “oh’s” and looked up at our faces. Finally, he set the folders back on his desk, took off his glasses, and rubbed his weary eyes. Then he started talking again.
Over the next half hour he told us all about himself, saying he headed up a task force. He wasn’t in uniform because, although he’d served in the army, he was no longer a soldier. Before the Apocalypse, he’d been an executive at Inditex, the world’s largest fashion conglomerate. For over fifteen years, he’d run the company’s giant clothing distribution center in Zaragoza. He’d been enjoying a quiet holiday at his home in the islands with his wife and daughters when the world went to hell. Powerless, he witnessed the world’s collapse, the defeat of humanity at the hands of the Undead, and the arrival of shattered survivors. At first they flooded in, but that downpour slowly became a drip that ended with us. Once things settled down, the army recruited him to be its quartermaster and bring order to the broken supply chain. Given his background, he was the right person, the only person with experience in organizing huge amounts of resources. So far, he’d done a remarkable job.
I envied that chatty, high-strung guy. Not only had he survived the Apocalypse, peacefully, in the Canaries, in his own home, surrounded by his family, but he worked comfortably behind a desk, hundreds of miles from the nearest Undead and all that shit. A piece of cake, compared to what we’d been through,
My instincts told me Prit and I—not that guy—were going to have to smell that shit up close.
TSJ hadn’t just carried off useless people or criminals. Many of the fallen were people with knowledge and skills essential to society’s survival. Engineers, architects, agronomists, nurses, pilots, doctors, soldiers—all missing
