Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Page 12

  I crossed the dock on high alert. When I reached the fish market, I pressed my back to the wall and poked my head around the corner. I saw two of those creatures, a young man and an elderly woman. They stood stock-still in the middle of the walkway, looking strangely desolate. The pouring rain plastered their clothes to their bodies. After nearly a month out in the elements, their clothes were starting to wear out. Now they really looked like something out of a horror movie. As if they hadn’t before.

  Flattened against the wall, I started forward, with the speargun and Glock ready. I came within four yards of them, but they didn’t see me; the storm, the growing darkness, and the rain hid me. Yet I was sure they sensed I was there. As I passed them, my nerves taut as piano wire, they snapped out of their trance. They began to stir, turning in every direction, trying to get a bead on me. Their senses may have diminished when they crossed the threshold of death, but they’d developed another “sense” that allowed them to detect beings. They knew I was close. Very close. It was just a matter of time before they located me. I had to hurry.

  Slithering along walls, crouching between cars abandoned in the road, I made it to a nautical supplies store I knew of. Then I realized two things. First, the store’s wrought iron gate was down. I’m such an idiot. I hadn’t thought about that. How the hell was I going to get through the gate with no electricity and no key?

  Second, about a dozen of those things were coming down the street toward me.

  I needed a solution. Fast. Suddenly, I saw it. Parked in front of the store was a delivery van. I crawled across the hood of the van onto its roof. The rain was harder than I expected, and I almost slipped a couple of times. I became hysterical as those things got closer. Shit!

  I finally managed to climb onto the roof of van. From there, the second-story balcony was less than three feet away, right above the store. I took a deep breath and jumped. Almost slipping on the moss growing on the ledge, I let myself fall inside the railing. The glass balcony door was locked, so I broke it with the handle of the gun. The pouring rain muffled the noise of breaking glass.

  The balcony door opened quietly and smoothly. Inside the enclosed balcony, I could make out heavy wooden furniture. A musty smell assailed my nose as I stepped inside.

  I eased up to the bedroom door. I reached for the glass doorknob, took a deep breath, jerked the door open, and jumped back.

  Nothing. Just a dark room. Fumbling around in the backpack, I pulled out a flashlight, lit up the hall, and entered the dark room. A monstrously large antique canopy bed loomed out of the dark. The place smelled musty from the damp and from being closed up. But behind that smell, in the background, I detected a faint smell of decay. I pictured the worst.

  I heard rain pouring through the downspouts in the background. From time to time, a powerful clap of thunder shook the house. The storm was right on top of the town. I admit I was scared to death.

  Next was the dining room. On the other side of the room a staircase led downstairs. I figured this house and the nautical supply store on the first floor had been owned by the same person. As I started down the stairs, I heard a noise totally unrelated to the storm. It was a constant, rhythmic beat accompanied by...bells?

  Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! Then suddenly the noise stopped. Then it started up again, with those damn bells in the background. It was maddening.

  The noise was coming from the floor I was on, not downstairs. From the back of the house. I could have ignored it and gone downstairs, looted what I needed, and left the way I came in. But I’m human. Besides being irrational, stupid, and unpredictable, humans are really curious. I needed to know what the hell was making that noise. Shaking, scared shitless, holding the Glock in my right hand and the flashlight in my left, I walked to the other end of the house.

  I walked through a small living room with a TV, a couple of sofas, some two-month-old magazines, and a lonely kneesock left on a table. I came to another door at the other end. The noise was louder here. I was getting closer. When I reached the door, I looked through the keyhole. I didn’t see anything, but the smell of decay was more intense here. Holding the flashlight in my mouth, I jerked the door open, only to find a shorter hall with two doors.

  Bam! The banging got louder, clearer, more intense. A whiff of rotten air stung my nostrils. Bam! I walked cautiously down the hall, trying not to throw up. Bam! Bam! I shone the flashlight all around; the hall was clear. All I saw were some lithographs of nautical scenes and the two doors. One of them was half-open and led to a bathroom. I carefully pushed the door. It opened with a creak as I flashed the light around the room. Empty.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The creak of the bathroom door caused the jingling and blows to increase. No machine made that sound. Whoever it was, he’d heard me. Holding my breath, I planted myself in front of the door.

  I still had time to turn around and leave. Whatever it was, it knew I was there, but it hadn’t come out. Either it couldn’t come out or it wasn’t interested in me. And I wanted nothing to do with it. But I had to know what the hell it was, so I grabbed the knob and yanked open that damn door.

  Jesus, I still shudder. That godforsaken room must’ve been the master bedroom. A quilt covered a huge bed. Lightning filtered through the half-closed blinds. At the foot of the bed, giving off an infernal odor, lay the body of a woman whose age I couldn’t determine. Clutched in her hands was a shotgun, pointing up. She’d stuck a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. The top of her head was gone. She’d been dead for weeks. Shining the light on to what was once her face, I saw fat white worms protruding from what remained of her mouth. I gagged and threw up in a corner for what seemed like an eternity. My small contribution to the hellish scene.

  Bam! I got to my feet like a bolt of lightning, a trickle of vomit dangling from my mouth. I shone the flashlight and saw him. A little boy about three or four, strapped into a high chair, barefoot and wearing overalls.

  He was one of them.

  When I shone the flashlight on him, he started to squirm, and the high chair bumped into the wall, making the pounding sound I’d heard. Rattles attached to the front of the chair jingled and shook as he looked at me with empty, dead eyes, his little arms outstretched, trying to catch me. What a sight!

  Disgusted, I backed into a corner and watched that little monster. The woman who lay at my feet must be his mother. When the little boy contracted the virus, it was too much for her. She saw what he’d become and didn’t have the courage to kill him, but she couldn’t go on living either. Trapped in the house, desperate, alone, she shot herself. That monster must’ve been strapped in that chair for weeks, unable to break free and search for warm-blooded, living beings.

  That little monster never stopped swaying, agitated at the sight of me. With what little cool I had left, I raised the speargun and aimed at his head. A weak, threatening growl came from his dark, foul-smelling mouth. Trembling, with tears running down my cheeks, I pointed the speargun at the boy. I closed my eyes. And fired.

  I know I did what I had to do, but I can’t help thinking he was practically a baby. It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever done. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  I pulled out the bloody spear and wiped it clean on the woman’s clothes. I stumbled out of that room from hell. I had to get a hold of myself. I’d come here with a purpose. I had to work fast so Lucullus and I could live another day. I wiped away my tears and headed down the stairs to the store.

  It was dark. Fucking dark. The stairs were black as a tunnel. In the halo of light from my flashlight, I could make out the steps and the wrought-iron railing, which twisted and turned in a complicated pattern. I was still trembling and had the bitter taste of vomit in my mouth. My tongue was dry as straw. I could’ve killed for a glass of water.

  I started down the steps cautiously. They creaked and groaned. Outside, the storm raged, the wind blew with a fury, and lightning lit up the scene. It was an eerie scene, right out of a horror movie. But this w
as not a fucking movie. I was in the middle of all that shit. Suddenly, I felt the urge to run away as fast as I could and cower on the Corinth, but that wasn’t a viable option. Not anymore.

  I finally reached the landing. The door was locked, but the key was in the lock. It turned with a loud click, and, presto, it opened.

  Very carefully, I poked my head in and shone the flashlight on a shelf with fishing rods and reels lined up in neat rows. I was inside the sailing shop. Great. Gaining confidence, I took a few steps and swung the light across several shelves, my mind racing through my shopping list. I shouldn’t linger. In one corner I saw some sailboat harnesses. After the incident on the way here, I thought that would be a good “purchase.” I set the gun and spear on a nearby shelf and, pointing the flashlight toward myself, got engrossed in choosing a harness in my size. It almost cost me my life.

  There was a roar, and a stack of fishing rods collapsed next to me. A pair of waxen white arms shoved them aside. The rest of the body followed. He was a man about forty, pale and ghostly, with dead eyes, his mouth ajar. One of them.

  He closed in on me fast. Before I knew it, he was on top of me. My weapons were too far away to do me any good. His clawlike hands grabbed my arm, and his momentum pushed me backward, off balance. I stumbled and fell back against a display case, dragging the monster with me.

  With a loud crash, we landed on a pile of compasses. The monster was on top of me, his entire weight pressed down on me. Somehow I got hold of his arms. With one leg bent between us, I kept his mouth away from my face. His expression was absolutely crazed; his jaw snapped open and closed, biting the air like a rabid dog. One bite nearly ripped off my nose.

  As I held him off, my mind was racing. The bastard was so strong. I didn’t know if those things got tired, but of course I did. My arms cramped up. The situation was becoming desperate.

  With one last effort, I rolled onto my right hip. The thing’s body crashed into the display case. Its steel corner dug into the base of his spine. A human would have writhed in agony, but he wasn’t fazed.

  Now we lay side by side, like lovers entwined in bed, but I was certainly not feeling sexy. One of his arms was trapped under my body. Through my wetsuit, I felt his fingernails raking across my back. Fortunately the neoprene was too thick and the position too awkward for him to get a firm grip.

  But now I had one arm free. Amid the confusion, the flashlight had fallen off the shelf, so we were in complete darkness. I ran my free hand over the nearest shelf above my head, groping around for something, anything. I grasped a heavy, cylindrical object and, with all my might, slammed it down on the creature’s head. It didn’t slow him down. I hit him again. Nothing. I knew you couldn’t knock out those sons of bitches with a blow to the head, but knowing that wasn’t going to save my life. Then something happened as I took my last swing.

  A slippery, greasy liquid poured down on me. At first I thought the thing was bleeding, but it was too sticky and thick to be blood. Then I thought he’d vomited on me. I was disgusted, and I drew strength from that thought. I lowered my other arm and, with my bent leg, kicked his body and pulled away. I slid away surprisingly fast and crashed into another row of shelves.

  The blow made me see stars. A million white, green, red, and blue dots danced before my eyes. Slipping and sliding, I stood up as I heard the thing fall less than three feet from me. Leaning on the display case, I realized it was the same one I’d set my weapons on. I groped around for my gun, praying the flashlight hadn’t fallen on the floor. Behind me, that thing struggled but couldn’t get to his feet.

  Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead. Suddenly, my fingers found the butt of the Glock. I turned and fired into the dark.

  The shot sounded like a cannon in the confined space of the store. My ears ringing, I tried to grasp what I’d seen in the flash of light from the first shot. Correcting my aim, I fired three more times.

  The roar of gunfire and the smell of gunpowder engulfed the room. The thing just stopped moving. Gasping for breath, I swung the Glock in all directions, squinting in an effort to see in the darkness. I bent down and felt around for the flashlight. Finally I found it and shook it, relieved that it wasn’t broken. I turned it on and surveyed the scene.

  It looked like a hurricane had hit the place. Display cases were lying on the floor, overturned in the struggle. The creature’s body was leaned against a wall as if he were asleep. Blood was gushing out of a huge black hole in his forehead.

  The floor was covered with a thick, oily substance. I bent down to inspect it. I realized I’d hammered on his head with a can of boat motor oil. It had split open and spilled all over us. Thanks to that, I was able to slide free, and the monster had slipped several times, giving me time to find my gun. A simple can had saved my life. The irony isn’t lost on me.

  I was covered in motor oil from head to toe. I must’ve looked pretty grim, standing there amid the devastation, the dark, sticky oil running down my body. As the adrenaline roared through my body, it sank in that I was still alive. If it hadn’t been for that can of oil and a lucky shot, that bastard would be snacking on me, and I’d be one of them. I felt sick to my stomach again, but I had nothing left to vomit up.

  He must have been the child’s father. Now I understood how the little boy got infected. His wife had locked her husband down here in the store when she saw what he’d become, and run back upstairs with her little boy, not knowing he was doomed too. That sucks.

  The metal gate was locked in place, and there didn’t seem to be any more creatures in the store. But the sound of gunfire had drawn a small crowd that was banging on the other side of the gate.

  I had to do three things: secure the area, find what I’d come for, and figure out how to escape this madhouse. And I had to hurry.

  ENTRY 55

  February 22, 6:15 p.m.

  * * *

  Was it Roosevelt who said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”? But he was never locked in a store in the dark, pumped full of adrenaline, covered in motor oil, with dozens of eager monsters banging on the gate six feet away, determined to kill him. I’m sure he would’ve been afraid. Fucking afraid.

  As I looked at the pile of rags lying at my feet, the magnitude of the situation hit me. I collapsed, exhausted and trembling, on to a pile of rain slickers and stared at the gate, which shuddered with every blow.

  There were no other noises, not even thunder. The storm had dissipated after venting all its fury. The gurgle of rainwater streaming through the gutters was all that remained of the storm that had raged over Bueu while I was fighting for my life.

  I leaned against the shelf and struggled to sit up. I looked around, every sense alert. I quickly checked out the store to make sure there were no more surprises. There was no other exit, just a small bathroom and a storeroom with neatly piled merchandise. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for a rust-colored bloodstain in one corner. That must be where the guy had gone through his transformation, alone in the dark, lying on the floor like a dog. I shuddered at the thought.

  I didn’t have much time. In a matter of minutes the place would be surrounded, and I’d be done for.

  I rushed around, shoving half the store into my backpack: two complete sets of charts of the Spanish and North African coasts—one drawn by the Spanish Navy and one by the British Admiralty (still the best), a high-quality GPS with a plotter connection, a couple of compasses, dozens of flashlight batteries, signal flares, a telescopic fishing rod, a box of hooks and fishing line, a safety harness, a spare wetsuit, two high-tech spearguns, and two dozen long, ominous, molten steel spears. Three loaded spearguns were definitely better than one.

  I stuffed all that into my backpack. As I climbed the stairs to the top floor, I started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop. With those spearguns, my backpack, my torn wetsuit, my body covered in oil and blood, I must’ve looked like some wacko slasher.

  Once upstairs, I went into the kitchen for some provisio
ns. The last thing I wanted to do was run around town, dodging monsters, looking for a store that hadn’t been ransacked. When I left home, I’d toyed with the idea of going to the shopping center for some groceries and supplies. But it dawned on me that, in the last days of the Safe Haven, loads of people must’ve had the same idea. The armed forces had probably plundered every store in the country to feed the multitudes in the Safe Havens.

  Fortunately, the pantry was really well stocked—pasta, canned goods, tomato sauce, rice, and flour. I also took some bags of sugar and five pounds of coffee. I was about to leave when I discovered a large supply of baby food. I stood there looking at all those jars lined up, knowing I’d killed the baby that food was intended for. The thought turned my stomach.

  With tears in my eyes, I packed up the baby food the little boy’s mother had so lovingly stored away. Not for me, but for Lucullus. He’d love it. On my way out, I discovered a wet bar. I took a couple of bottles of gin and half a carton of Marlboros. Great! I planned to have a smoke when I got onboard to help me sleep. And forget.

  My backpack wasn’t completely full, but it weighed far too much, considering I had to dodge that howling crowd all the way to the dock. I peeked out the front window. There was no way out there. About two dozen ghostly, soaking wet undead had packed into the narrow street in front of the store.

  I tiptoed back to the kitchen. The window opened onto a narrower street. It was deserted. I stuck my head out and looked to the left. I could see the sea. That would be my escape route. I went back down to the store and cut about ten yards of the heavy-duty rope used on boats. Back in the kitchen, I tied one end of the rope to a radiator and cast the other end out the window. All I had to do was climb down and make it to the end of the street before those bastards saw me. Piece of cake!