Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End az-1 Read online

  Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

  ( Apocalypse Z - 1 )

  Manel Loureiro

  The dead rise…

  A mysterious incident in Russia, a blip buried in the news—it’s the only warning humanity receives that civilization will soon be destroyed by a single, voracious virus that creates monsters of men.

  Humanity falls…

  A lawyer, still grieving over the death of his young wife, begins to write as a form of therapy. Bur he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity’s last days.

  The end of the world has begun…

  Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called “Safe Havens” are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to live, a lone survivor will give mankind one last chance against…

  Apocalypse Z

  Manel Loureiro

  APOCALYPSE Z

  The Beginning of the End

  Translated by Pamela Carmell

  When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.

  —Dawn of the Dead, 1978

  THE BLOG

  ENTRY 1

  Friday, December 30, 8:40 a.m.

  Today’s going to be insane. When I got up this morning, it was pouring down rain. It was still raining as I fixed myself a cup of coffee. I took a shower with the news blaring on the radio.

  Some things never change. One day Spain’s broke, the next day it’s not. Today I have a meeting that could mean the difference between living like a king for the next six months or fighting with stockholders who have no idea what’s best for them. It’s their money, not mine, but if the merger goes through, I could kick back and live on my commission for the next few months. I need to relax, motor around on my little Zodiac, and do some scuba diving in the Ria Pontevedra…

  I drank my coffee and looked out the window that opens on to the garden. This house was a good buy, but so many things still remind me of my wife. She chose it, she decorated it, she…I guess that doesn’t matter now. I thought my doctor’s advice to “unburden myself” to others would help me get over her, but time goes by and I still feel her presence everywhere. “Write a blog,” my psychologist told me. “Talk about anything you want, any topic. Just talk.” Well, that’s what I’m doing right now, but it’s not doing much good. What the hell. I’ll give it a try.

  The garden is green, damp, lush, and overgrown. It’s been raining nonstop for three weeks here in Galicia. The humidity has permeated everything. If this rain keeps up, I’ll have to cut the grass and clear the vines off the garden walls. It was her decision to surround the house with these high stone walls; water’s trickling through them now. “We need privacy,” she said. Now she’s gone, and I feel like I’m living in a fortress.

  I straightened my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and turned off the radio. The newscaster was talking about an explosive situation in a former Soviet republic in the Caucasus Mountains, someplace with a name ending in -stan. Something about a rebel group attacking a military base where Russian troops were stationed. Too bloody for me. I snapped off the radio. I had to get to the office. I was running late.

  ENTRY 2: HOLIDAY HANGOVER

  January 3, 1:15 p.m.

  I haven’t updated this blog for several days. The meeting with the company reps went great! Now I can splurge and take a nice vacation on what I earned last month.

  On New Year’s Eve, I had dinner at my parents’ house in Cotobade, near Pontevedra. They moved there years ago, after they retired. In addition to my parents, my aunt and uncle were there, along with my sister and her boyfriend, in from Barcelona, where they work. She’s a lawyer like me, although we work in different fields. She’s lived there for years and has fit into life in Catalonia. I’ve always preferred Galicia.

  During dinner we discussed the big story in the news: the conflict in the Caucasus. Apparently, a group of Islamic guerrillas from…Dagestan?…attacked a former Soviet base still under Russian control there. My sister thinks they were looking for nuclear material. I hope she’s wrong. That’s all we need—another terrorist attack like in Madrid on March 11 but with nuclear bombs.

  What few images there are on the news are hazy. The base that was attacked was top secret, and authorities aren’t allowing anyone to take pictures. Reporters have to broadcast from the hotel roof, using images on file and street maps. They say hundreds have died, and Putin has put all of Russia on high alert. Images of soldiers and tanks occupying the streets are chilling. They must be afraid there’ll be more assaults or attacks throughout the country. I’m glad I’m not there.

  ENTRY 3

  January 3, 7:03 p.m.

  I’m watching TV. Channel 5 has interrupted its broadcast for a live report on the Russian Federation closing all its borders. All flights in and out of Russia have been canceled. The launch of a Soyuz rocket has been postponed sine die. On CNN they’re discussing what this shutdown means—either the situation in Dagestan has gotten out of hand, or Putin wants to increase his power. A cautious analyst on some talk show is sure there’s no cause for alarm; it’s all a political maneuver. I don’t know what to think.

  The electricity came back on first thing this afternoon. I can’t take the electric company’s damn outages anymore. I’m living in a housing complex just a mile or so from Pontevedra, a city of eighty thousand people! “Problems with the power lines,” they said. They estimated six months to fix it. They’re not going to jerk me around anymore. Tomorrow I’m buying some solar panels and storage cells for the roof. And then screw the electric company.

  ENTRY 4: GETTING WORRIED

  January 4, 10:59 a.m.

  I watched a news report about Russia on CNN this morning. Finally there are images of what the hell is going on in Dagestan. Putin’s government continues to seal off the country. First they closed the borders; then they banned updates. Reporters based in Dagestan have been moved to Moscow to “ensure their safety,” the report said.

  Today they broadcasted a home video. You could see special units of the Russian army advancing down a deserted street in a town near the base that was attacked. At the beginning of the recording, they panned across the faces of the soldiers in a tank. They were young boys who looked pretty scared. When they jumped out of the tank, I was shocked to see that they were wearing gas masks, as if they were afraid of breathing something harmful. They started shooting like crazy at something or someone and then ran like hell back to the tank. That’s where the tape ended. I don’t know what to think about all this.

  On Channel 3, they said it’s possible that those rebel forces were from Chechnya and wanted to seize control of chemical weapons or nuclear material stored in the laboratories. The world is full of crazy people…

  This afternoon I did some shopping. Three Kings Night is coming up. The mall near my house was packed with people buying gifts. I ran up my credit card buying tons of food, several five-liter jugs of water, a couple of powerful flashlights, and lots and lots of batteries on account of the damn power outages, and some electrical equipment, especially cable. If I’m going to install solar panels on the roof, I’d better be ready for some glitches. I also bought a ton of food for Lucullus, my Persian cat, who’s been ignoring me lately.

  Some girl kitty in the neighborhood must be in heat. Lucullus thinks it’s his duty to shower her with his attention. He’s constantly jumping the wall in search of adventure. That wall’s ten feet high! What a guy won’t do for a girl!

  I went to the store that installs solar panels and bought a couple of BP Solar SX170
panels. They were pretty expensive. All totaled, including installation (they’ll be here tomorrow to install them), it came to two thousand euros (storage batteries not included), but it’s the best on the market. Each panel weighs about fifteen pounds, so they can be installed on the roof without caving it in. They’re multicrystalline silicone cells guaranteed to last twenty-five years. With the two panels on the roof, I can charge two series of 24-volt storage batteries even in a place like Galicia where there’s so little sun. That’s crucial if I don’t want food in the two freezers in the basement to spoil.

  I don’t have a lot of time to shop, so I stock up. That way I only have to go to the store every couple of weeks. These freezers are a great invention.

  On the way home, I stopped at the liquor store and bought a couple of cartons of Fortuna cigarettes and a pad of paper, for when inspiration hits me. As I was waiting to pay, I saw a couple of guys in the gun shop across the street buying shotgun shells. It’s hunting season, and there’s a festival to kick it off. It’ll be a long weekend for them.

  When I got home, I put away my purchases and mowed the lawn as I listened to the radio. My backyard is only about five hundred square feet. I have a lot of privacy, with the wall around it. The house is brick and is in a development of forty identical brick villas, in rows of ten, on two parallel streets. Mine is in the middle of Street 1. It doesn’t have a real name, since the development is less than three years old. These things take time. There’s a house on each side of me and one in the back, facing Street 2. A small backyard and a wall, about ten feet high, separate me from the villa behind me.

  I don’t know my neighbors very well, since I’m hardly ever at home. A very nice retired couple with a Pathfinder lives across the street. Next door is a doctor and his wife and two young daughters. A cool guy named Alfredo lives on the other side. He works construction and lives with his girlfriend. I live with my cat Lucullus, the horniest devil on the street. One of these days a hysterical neighbor will show up at my door with a box of kittens the spitting image of Lucullus, demanding an explanation. I have to do something with that cat.

  On the radio they are still reporting news of Dagestan. It looks like the situation is spinning out of control. The Putin government continues the news blackout and sends in more and more troops and medical personnel. What the hell’s going on?

  ENTRY 5: SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT

  January 5, 1:54 p.m.

  This morning a crew of guys installed my new solar panels. They’re rated at 220W in optimal conditions of luminosity. The two rows of 24-volt batteries in the basement will give me about eight hours of electricity a day, more than enough to weather any power outage.

  I called my sister in Barcelona to talk for a while. This weekend she’s going to visit a friend in Girona. She said she’s fine, and after some small talk, we hung up.

  On TV they keep showing images from Dagestan. According to the latest news (what little there is, given the media blackout), Russian authorities have begun to evacuate the population. In the assault on the Russian base, Chechen rebels must have accidentally released some kind of chemical weapon stored there. On Channel 1, Lorenzo Mila, the highly respected newscaster from Barcelona, speculated it might have been sarin gas, what terrorists used in the attack in Tokyo. Channel 5 reported it might’ve been the hydrogen peroxide the Soviets used in their intercontinental missiles.

  I don’t think anyone knows for sure what’s going on.

  ENTRY 6

  January 9, 10:23 a.m.

  Something’s really wrong in Russia. This weekend there has been a steady stream of news updates, statements, denials of those statements, blackouts, and violence. For the last forty-eight hours, nonstop on every channel, all they’ve talked about is the events in Dagestan.

  On Friday morning they closed Russia’s borders. That afternoon, Reuters reported that the raided base was really a biological research laboratory and that the substance accidentally released was some kind of pathogenic agent. Hours later, the Putin government categorically refuted that and talked only about a cloud of toxic chemical fertilizers. By breakfast time on Saturday, we learned that Russia had requested a team from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta to come to Dagestan.

  Now they’re saying they released the highly contagious West Nile virus that was endemic in Egypt. A few years ago a mosquito transmitting the disease found its way on to a plane. Since 1995 there’ve been isolated cases in Europe and South America. That sounds logical, if it weren’t for one small detail—there aren’t many mosquitoes in the Caucasus Mountains in the middle of January.

  On Sunday, things seemed to spin out of control. Just five hours after the CDC team arrived, just as they started to care for the poisoned—or should I say infected—people, two of its members had to be evacuated to the United States after some kind of incident with the patients.

  Late that night, something similar happened to a team from the World Health Organization (WHO). They were rushed to the base at Ramstein, Germany. Some Internet sites are saying that members of the team were killed.

  We don’t have much information on the Russian medical teams, if they even have any, or the civilian population in the area. Home videos smuggled out of the country, mostly online, showed long convoys of people fleeing or being evacuated, some with pretty bad wounds, and lots and lots of ambulances. Army troops and Russian Border Guards in combat gear are headed in the opposite direction, toward what is now called the hot zone.

  And this morning, the nail in the coffin. The Russian government declared martial law. All foreign journalists had to leave the country. No more freedom of assembly or the press. What’s even weirder, they declared an Internet blackout across the country. Nothing can get in or out—in theory, anyway.

  This morning our minister of health came on Channel 1 and said that the Spanish government will ensure that there are no outbreaks of West Nile in Spain. There’s no cause for alarm. On Channel SER, the minister of defense said that a team of army medical personnel and construction engineers are headed to Dagestan to help control the situation. He emphasized that they won’t be in danger. Blah, blah, blah.

  Half of Europe, Japan, the United States, and Australia are sending similar teams. Something is happening in Russia. Something huge.

  ENTRY 7: NEW IDEAS

  January 9, 7:58 p.m.

  I spent all afternoon trying out the solar panels. The power they generate is amazing. However, if I connected a lot of appliances at one time, energy consumption would soar and drain the batteries in a couple of hours. Using them with only a couple of freezers and the computer, for example, increases battery life to around fifteen hours. After that there’s a lapse of about eight hours when the batteries can’t be used because the voltage is very low and appliances could be damaged due to the difference in voltage. According to the manufacturer, in sunny climates you could use them for twenty-four hours, but it’s winter in Galicia, so I can’t complain. I won’t have to put up with an outage of more than a couple of hours, not even during the worst winter storms. Overall it’s a very smart investment.

  Lucullus is kind of surprised by the strange hat his house is wearing. (I’m sure he thinks this is his home and I’m his pet.)

  I listened to the radio all day—in the morning, on the way home from the office, and as I fixed dinner. The Spanish contingent took off from the Torrejón Air Base near Madrid, headed for a Dagestani town named Buynaksk, where they’ll set up a field hospital. The Russians are dividing the international health groups among several locations. The region is very backward, and Russian health care seems to be on the verge of collapse.

  In some refugee camps in neighboring republics, they’re reporting new cases of what they insist is an especially virulent strain of the West Nile virus. But media sources are calling it Ebola. If that’s true, the Russians are really screwed. Nobody seems to have organized camps for the refugees who were scattered to the four winds when the army expelled the healthy fr
om their homes, along with the sick.

  To make matters worse, many refugees have fled the country in little boats across the Caspian Sea to Iran, fueling fears that the disease will reach the Middle East.

  I did more shopping, picked up some flu remedies, and went by my mother’s house. I got her to write me a prescription for antibiotics. I’m a fanatic when it comes to colds.

  ENTRY 8: MORE NEWS

  January 9, 8:40 p.m.

  Reuters reports that three of the WHO doctors evacuated to Ramstein have died. According to the medical report, this is a highly virulent hemorrhagic fever that causes disorientation, delusions, and acute aggression. The Ebola theory carries some weight.

  ENTRY 9: TIPPING POINT

  January 10, 11:01 a.m.

  I write this during a break between meetings. I’m sitting on a park bench under my office window. With the new ban on smoking in the workplace, if I want to have a smoke, I have to go into exile, out in the cold. I can’t even smoke in my own office! One good thing, I can pick up Wi-Fi out here so I can surf the net.

  The news on several sites is very confusing. Almost all of it is disturbing. The situation in Russia appears to be completely out of control, just a couple of weeks after the Chechen assault. Martial law hasn’t done any good. Chaos is spreading throughout the country. As you’d expect, the Internet blackout Putin ordered has been useless. Many Russian servers are located in countries outside the EU, so information is still getting out over the Internet. That’s the only information besides official reports. Many bloggers report Russian military patrolling the streets, curfews, and indiscriminate shootings. Even cannibalism. With all the chaos this situation has triggered, many areas are totally cut off. In statement after statement, the Russian government has denied everything. The Russian minister of defense insisted that the riots were the work of Muslim extremists trying to destabilize the government. The truth is, the Russian government’s credibility has plummeted, and the international press is highly skeptical of anything it says.