Dark Days

the tenth floor!”

The Argentine craned his neck to see where she was pointing. The poor devil was a young guy, naked from the waist up. His spine must’ve broken in the fall, because he was stretched out on the ground, dark liquid oozing from his body, probably his internal organs that’d been crushed upon impact. He jerked around, struggling to stand up. Too bad he hadn’t broken his skull and ended that nightmare.

“Don’t worry, Paulita,” Marcelo said matter-of-factly. “His days are numbered.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. “What the hell’re you going to do?

My question was interrupted by Tank’s scratchy voice crackling over the intercom.

“That’s good! Most of them should be out of the building. Go ahead, Group Two!”

The helicopter traced a long ellipse, away from the plaza. Before I had time to wonder what the hell was going on, a raspy sound cut short all conversation in the cockpit. The helicopter leaned slightly as the entire crew moved to the windows, trying to spot the source of sound.

After a few seconds, I spotted two small dots in the sky heading right for us at top speed. As the dots grew larger, we could make out all the details of those planes that purred along, chewing up the distance between them and the plaza.

Totally amazed, I uttered a loud Fuuuuck. “What the hell are they?” I stammered. I felt like I was in a really weird dream.

“Buchones!” David Broto cheered, pressing his nose against the window. “Damn! Look at ‘em go! Incredible.” The computer guy bounced in his seat, pointing at the propeller planes as they made a graceful turn around the hospital tower.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell a Buchon is? Where did they come from?” I asked over the uproar in the helicopter. Everyone was talking and shouting at once. It was a madhouse.

“Those are Hispano Aviacion HA-1112 M1L Buchones!” Broto shouted, not taking his eyes off those small fighter planes.

From the look on my face, he realized I didn’t understand. “After World War Two, Franco somehow secured the plans for some Nazi fighter planes and had them manufactured for the Spanish Air Force. But since the German factories were destroyed in the war, they outfitted them with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. They patrolled Spain’s African colonies till the late fifties. Now there’re just a few in museums. Two Buchones! Amazing!” he blurted out, his eyes glued to the planes.

Fucking Tank, I thought, marveling at the German’s audacity. In just a couple of hours, the other team had managed to start those relics that had been gathering dust in the Air Museum. The crowd of Undead was going wild because of the engine noise as those old birds hovered menacingly above them.

“Watch closely, che.” Marcelo made room for me beside him at the open window. “The show’s about to start.”

The Buchones made a final turn about a mile from us and headed straight for the plaza with a deafening roar. Only then did I notice that hanging underneath each plane’s wings were the red containers I’d seen the other team laboriously ferry on the airport bus. I suddenly realized what was going to happen.

“NAPALM!” I cried. I couldn’t contain myself. This was gonna be good!

The planes flew very low—around three hundred feet—over the parking lot. On cue, the red containers broke away, did a slow roll, and fell onto the crowd below.

The fuses were activated as soon as the containers hit the ground. Two huge balls of fire and black smoke exploded almost simultaneously. The flames rose to a staggering height and a tremendous explosion echoed across the city.

The helicopter lurched suddenly, as if it’d been punched by a giant fist of air. Prit let out a long stream of Russian words. The fireballs changed into a single, gigantic, orange ball, streaked with dark smoke. Globs of the gelatinous Napalm splattered everywhere. I had to turn away from the window. Although we were several hundred feet from the fire, the unbridled heat rising from that hell was suffocating. The tall buildings surrounding the parking lot transformed the place into a giant stewpot, concentrating the effect of napalm. The swirling air generated by the heat fueled the flames.

Judging by Kurt Tank’s comments on the radio, he was thrilled with the outcome of the operation. He had every reason to be. There wouldn’t be much left down there.

Those few moments seemed to go on forever, but finally the fireball died down once all the fuel was consumed. The columns of black smoke combined into a single tall column visible from miles away.

“Look at that!” howled one of the legionnaires. “Not a single one is left standing!”

Excited shouts erupted in the helicopter. The huge crowd that had been knotted together in the parking lot just a moment before was now reduced to just a few hundred smoking torches that stumbled around and finally collapsed. The vile blue or green flames the smoldering bodies on the ground gave off blended with the black smoke that blanketed the entire parking lot. The pungent smell of burning flesh stung my nose and made my eyes water. Dante’s Inferno couldn’t have been worse.

“Why do they burn like that?” Broto asked Pauli, staring at the charred tapestry. “That’s fucking amazing! They burned to the bone in minutes. Jesus Fucking Christ!”

“Simple,” said the Catalan, as she tightened the straps of her bulletproof vest. “Most of those things have been dead—or undead—for over a year.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Broto was clueless.

“It means,” Pauli patiently explained, “they’re undergoing the process of putrefaction, albeit slowly. The process of decomposition generates—”

“Gases,” I blurted out, suddenly grasping what had just happened.

“Methane gas, mostly. The longer they’ve been in that state, the higher the concentration of gases saturating their body fat. The ones who burned like matches succumbed in the early days. The rest,” she nodded toward the few figures still staggering around, “have only been Undead for a few months.”

I looked down once more at the furiously burning bodies below. Jubilation flooded the cabin in waves, as the helicopter slowly descended. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the tense, worried faces of the crew. A few veterans made jokes to take their minds off their fear.

I was hard-pressed to describe what I felt. Fear, mostly. Anguish, thinking about the thousands of lives we’d just cut down. Those things weren’t just rag dolls; they’d been people who’d had a life and dreams and who didn’t deserve to end up like that. And I felt heartsick, thinking that if it weren’t for dumb luck I’d have ended up one of the horde of Undead.

Mostly I was scared.

Panicked.

In just a few moments, those soldiers, who were so young and should’ve had their whole lives ahead of them, would bravely head into that building. Viktor Pritchenko and I knew too well the horrors awaiting them.

28

TENERIFE

Basilio Irisarri was in a foul mood. The look on his face and in his narrow, vacant eyes was homicidal. Lately he’d snarled over and over, “Get my drift, pal?” Basilio didn’t know he had that tic, but it had gotten worse recently. As an idea took shape in his mind, that phrase became a mantra he said to anyone who’d listen.

Things had gotten complicated since that ugly business with the nun. Basilio was already in the hot seat with the higher-ups. He always had trouble with bosses, but this time he was really in the hot seat.

For starters, he was no longer stationed on the Galicia. During the internal investigation required by navy protocol, he’d been “temporarily relieved” of his duties. He didn’t mind that part. The Galicia was nearly empty these days. The flow of refugees had completely dried up. That damned nun and her pals were the last to be quarantined on that ship.

Basilio had resented standing guard in an empty boat anchored in the middle of the bay. He’d never admit it,