nap, glad for a break from those terrifying heights and to be back on terra firma. Lucullus was indifferent to me, as he groomed himself, oblivious to the world. I shrugged. I’d only be gone a minute.
The door was locked, so I looked around for another way in. Flower pots filled with wilted plants were lined up in front. A sun-bleached sign for ice cream lay on the ground next to a tattered umbrella, a dust-encrusted table, and a couple of plastic chairs. Tossed in the far corner, collecting dirt, was a denim jacket so faded its color was unrecognizable.
The door wouldn’t budge. I had better luck with one of the old wood-frame windows that opened into the kitchen. The passage of time and the heat generated by the grill had warped it, leaving it open a few inches at the top. I drew out my knife and stuck the blade in the gap to jimmy it open. After a minute or two, the latch broke with a dull
I stealthily made my way into the kitchen, peering into the darkness. The change from bright light to shadows left me blinded for a few seconds. To make matters worse, the rotten smell took my breath away. I covered my nose with my sleeve. My eyes teared up and bile rose in my throat.
As I got accustomed to the half-light, I could make out details in the kitchen. The smell was coming from a huge, industrial freezer standing wide open. Hundreds of pounds of pork and beef had been rotting in there for months. On the counter, thousands of maggots swarmed over what had once been pork ribs and were even crawling on the handle of the knife lying beside the meat. Next to that, a pile of rotten tomatoes waited for someone to slice them for a salad that would never be served. On the stove was a scorched pan; the smoke it gave off as it burned had left a large ring on the ceiling. The gas jet remained open, but the gas had long since run out. It was a miracle the place hadn’t burned to the ground.
Judging from the scene, the folks in that greasy spoon had fled in panic, not stopping to do the most basic things. I knew exactly what had frightened them so much.
I eased the kitchen door open. A dozen tables covered with rotting food were arranged around the dining room. It looked like a still life in chiaroscuro some great artist had painted. A purse hung from the back of a chair, abandoned by its owner as she fled.
I looked around the charmless room till I spotted a cigarette vending machine next to the bar. A calendar, forever open to February, was stuck to the mirror, surrounded by bottles of cognac, photos of Real Madrid and team flags. I slipped behind the bar and rummaged through drawers crammed with receipts till I found a bunch of keys. I smiled, pleased to find that one of those keys opened the cigarette machine.
From outside came the muffled sound of metal cans clanking together, signaling that Prit and Lucia were closing up the cargo net and were ready to take off. I panicked as I pictured them taking off without me, leaving me in that dirty, forgotten corner, far from the hand of God. That was a ridiculous idea, completely unfounded, but to a mind with so little rest, it seemed plausible. I rushed around, stuffing as many packs as I could into my backpack, spilling cigarettes onto the floor. I even grabbed the cheap brands. Who knew where I’d find the next supply?
I was about to leave when I decided I’d better finally answer the call of nature. After flying for seven hours without a break, my bladder was about to explode. Prit bragged that he could piss into a bottle as he was flying. No doubt he could, but the idea of peeing in front of a nun and a seventeen-year-old hottie just didn’t sit well with me, so I’d held it. Until then.
I slung my rifle across my back and unzipped my pants on the way to the john to save time. As I stood at the urinal, I felt a huge sense of relief.
Just as I was zipping up, I saw a hand reflected in the chrome urinal. Behind that hand, an arm, then the rest of the woman. She was enormous, around two hundred pounds. What was left of her curly hair was in fat ringlets. Someone—or something—had eaten half her face and ripped her arms out of their sockets. I spotted a half-devoured arm lying in a pool of dried blood on the bathroom floor. The arm I’d seen coming through the door was attached to her shoulder by just a couple of tendons; it swayed wildly as she lurched from side to side.
Before I could turn around, the monster jumped on me and flattened me against the wall. I felt her breath on my neck and heard her teeth clanking against the barrel of the rifle on my back. Fortunately she didn’t have any arms, otherwise she’d have stopped me cold. I fought off her first onslaught, but the situation was still dire. Bracing my hands on the wall, I pushed back but the thing’s teeth had a firm grip on my rifle. Just then, my feet slipped out from under me.
We hit the ground and rolled. I wriggled free of her dead weight and started crawling to the door. I watched in horror as she ferociously chomped down on one of my boots. With my other foot, I flailed around wildly, kicking her in the gaping red hole that had once been her face.
I didn’t want to die. Not there in the filthy bathroom of that God-forsaken roadhouse, dragging myself along the ground with my pants unzipped.
With both hands I grabbed one of the spears I always carried in the sheath strapped to my leg (my spear gun was back in the helicopter). I raised it over my head and plunged it into the center of that creature’s skull. With a soft squish, the spear’s steel tip slid into her head till it reached bone, where it stuck.
Holy Christ! The whole thing was over in a flash—fifteen seconds, tops.
I inched up the wall and got to my feet, never taking my eyes off that Undead thing. As always after a fight like that, my stomach was in knots, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I tried to light a cigarette, but my hands were trembling so much, I couldn’t flick the wheel of the lighter, so I gave up.
I staggered out of the bathroom, with the bitter taste of vomit in my mouth, feeling the adrenaline coursing through me. I’d never get used to killing one of those creatures. I felt sick every time, even though I knew they weren’t alive. Every time my life was in danger, terror paralyzed me. And every night, for so many months, horrible nightmares were my bed companions.
I wasn’t the only one. Lucia tossed and turned at night, fleeing the nightmares that hounded her. Prit would wake up suddenly with a crazed look in his eyes. He’d stare blankly into space for hours, then knock back the better part of a bottle of vodka. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I must’ve had the same expression on my face. No one had gotten more than five hours of sleep for months.
I finally managed to light a cigarette and bolted out the door. I squinted in the sunlight, disoriented for a moment. I turned toward the Sokol, whose huge blades were slowly tracing large circles in the air. From the copilot window, Lucia was scrutinizing me, as Pritchenko checked all the fluids before taking off.
I dragged my feet through the dust as I walked back to the helicopter. Lucia watched me with a piercing gaze. She must’ve guessed what had happened. I was exhausted and emotionally drained. That little episode was a summary of what my life had become—a nightmare that never let up.
3
“Come in!
“Talk to me, Prit!” I yelled into the microphone over the howl of the engines, as the helicopter traced a wide spiral above the ground.
“That might be a good place to land.”
I looked where he was pointing. We were flying over a miserable little town that clung to the Atlantic shore, where the sands of the Sahara sank under the cold ocean. There were about twenty houses and a whitewashed mosque ringed by fields of stunted crops. Half a dozen long, sun-bleached fishing boats rested on the beach. A dusty road ran north and south through town and disappeared in the distance.
At the southern end of the town was a large open space, about five hundred feet from the nearest houses, surrounded by a dilapidated wood fence and thorny bushes. Probably a goat pen once, but there was no sign of any goats. A perfect place to land.
With a long, graceful pirouette, Prit brought the chopper down, until we were hovering about twenty feet above the goat pen. The fuel drums clanked against each other as the cargo net settled on the ground. With a light flick of the controls, the Ukrainian landed the helicopter alongside the net. In just a few seconds, the Sokol was
