Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (15 page)

I’ve never liked rain. That’s a pretty futile way to feel, since rain’s a regular part of life in Galicia. However, as I watched the rain fall on the small fishing village of Bueu, I decided, in the end, it was not so bad. It might even help me.

The storm lasted for nearly twelve hours. Rain and wind lashed the coast. The sea, shaken and stirred, was an ominous steel gray. Normally the fleet would stay moored in the harbor and sailors would drink a hot toddy in the bar. But as far as I can tell, there’s no fleet and no sailors. Not living, anyway.

Despite being sheltered behind the Port Bueu breakwater, the
Corinth
pitched violently in the remnants of the powerful storm. The wind shook the rigging and dragged sheets of rain across its deck. The scuppers could barely keep up with all the water. I could just make out the buildings onshore. Five minutes out in that storm and you’d be soaked to the bone.

Yet this weather gave me the edge. The wind and rain would cover up any noise I made on land. And visibility was really low. This time, the weather was my ally.

I had to go ashore. I badly needed nautical charts. The fugitives who attacked the
Corinth
couldn’t get the boat out of the harbor, so they looted anything they thought they could use,
including the charts. Without them, I risked hitting a shoal or debris in the water. Plus in their flight they tried to start the GPS built into the control panel. All they’d accomplished was to break the LCD screen. It was of absolutely no use. Although I only had to sail along the coast to Vigo, my experience at Tambo taught me not to take anything for granted. After Vigo, my path might lead me someplace else, and I needed to be prepared.

Besides, my supplies were getting really low. I could stand a couple of days on half rations, but Lucullus looked at me indignantly each time he got a whiff of the meager rations I served him.

I don’t know what Lucullus thinks of all this, but I’m sure what really bothers my little friend more than being scared and bounced around and getting wet is the catastrophic state of our pantry. I don’t want a cat mutiny. I’ll give him credit, he’s holding up like a champ. He’s the only company I’ve had for almost a month. If it weren’t for him, I’d be half out of my mind.

I’d made a decision; now I had to come with a plan. The prospect of going ashore was really frightening. I didn’t know what I’d find beyond what I could see from the deck. So my plan was just to reach the shore, get what I needed with as little hassle as possible, and get the hell out of there. I’d have to wing it the rest of the time.

I put on my wetsuit and grabbed the Glock, its two magazines, the speargun, and four spears. I strapped on the empty backpack and climbed down into the
Corinth
’s lifeboat. The rain and pounding waves nearly drowned me. I ignored the cold rising up my legs and rowed cautiously toward the dock on the deserted shore.

As I rowed, I noticed that the usually muddy, oily water at the port was strangely clean. The environment had changed amazingly fast after just a couple of weeks with no humans. I hardly saw any animals except birds. There are hundreds of them, especially gulls.
I shuddered when I recalled that, besides eating fish, gulls are scavengers. Lately they must’ve had all the carrion they could eat.

I finally reached the steps to the dock. I tied up the lifeboat and quietly climbed the stairs. I glanced around. The storm was still raging over the deserted dock. The pounding of the rain and the wind whistling through the streets combined with the rhythmic din of thunder. The wind lashed my face, dragging rain across my eyes. I couldn’t see or hear anything more than five yards away. It was perfect.

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 was 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.