Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (5 page)

I didn’t say a word the entire flight. When I thought about what I’d just seen, I had to run to the bathroom. I couldn’t stop throwing up. Hell, the soldier had blown the guy’s head off right in front me!

Nobody handed out masks during the flight. I guess they didn’t think it was necessary anymore. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

When I got to Santiago de Compostela, the scene was the same as in Barcelona, but on a smaller scale. In the parking lot, a guy offered me his car in exchange for a flight to Zurich that was taking off in an hour. Our values have certainly changed.

I listened to the radio as I drove home. The situation is chaotic. More nuclear explosions in China. Are they trying to stop the epidemic with bombs? Or the carriers of the disease? Who knows. America is at DEFCON 1, whatever that means. Riots in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao. The world’s out of control. All the TV networks report that Spain could declare martial law within hours. No news from Russia. In Germany, in a statement broadcast three hours ago, Angela Merkel said, “Dresden is lost.” Evacuation orders in Paris, Reims, and Marseille. In Italy, the carabinieri are ruthlessly taking a suburb of Naples. The world is shattered, and I still don’t know why.

I picked Lucullus up and went home. This morning I called in sick. They said not to worry; the courts are temporarily closed. Only the military courts are open, and then only to try looters and anyone violating the curfew. I slept most of Monday. When I got up, I made some coffee and sat down in front of the TV. I’m writing this with Lucullus purring in my lap. I don’t have a clue what’s going on.

It’s official: we’re fucked. At three this afternoon, the king came back on TV and announced that martial law had been declared all across Spain. The curfew is still in place from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. Anyone caught on the street between those hours risks being shot, clear and simple. Travel between regions is prohibited, and the army is setting up checkpoints on all major roads.

Fifteen cities have been declared areas of risk. No one is allowed in or out of them. All the cities where there’ve been outbreaks of the epidemic are on the list, along with nine more.
Madrid and Barcelona are among them. I hope my sister moved up their plans and has already left the city. Fuck.

For now, Pontevedra has escaped the carnage, but who knows for how long. Ferrol and La Coruña, about a hundred miles away, are “areas of risk.” They’re cut off—in theory. But a friend who lives in La Coruña just called me on the way to his parents’ home in Vigo. He made it out of town on two-lane highways and back roads. It’s physically impossible to isolate a medium-size town, let alone a big city. The way things are going, the plague will get here soon. I should do something. But what?

I got in the car and headed downtown. The streets are half-empty, and the town looks like it’s under siege. It’s been raining nonstop for hours. On the sidewalks you can feel how uneasy people are. It’s really cold. I passed several police cars and a couple of Light Brigade Airborne (BRILAT) troop carriers. Their barracks are located two miles from Pontevedra. They’ve been there for years, but I’d never seen troops stationed downtown until today.

I stopped at a service station to get some gas. As the Astra was filling up, I went inside to buy some smokes, the newspaper, and some magazines and a can of oil. (I should have gotten the oil changed a week ago. Damn!) The clerk told me that some gas stations were having problems getting gas, especially in remote areas. Now that the ports are closed, refineries have stopped production, and the government has militarized the existing supplies. That’s just great.

Then I went to the mall. Something told me I’d better stock up. I was surprised to see the supermarket so crowded. A lot of people had the same idea. In the appliances and home repair department, I bought an ultrashortwave radio with a sweep dial. I’ve had my eye on it for a long time. I’d planned to listen to the Coast Guard channel when I went out on the Zodiac to dive around the wreck of the
Florita
. Its hull has been in the river
for years, and it’s in bad condition, so no one’s allowed to dive down there. If they catch you, you’ll get a heavy fine and lose your license, but it’s worth the risk. Now I plan to use the radio for something entirely different.

When I got home, I brushed Lucullus and fixed him his favorite food. Then I tried the radio. After a while, I found the frequencies of the national and municipal police. Perfect. Now I can get information first. I also picked up a few amateur ham radio operators, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

Now I’m glued to the TV, watching images from the United States, taken from a helicopter, of a traffic jam on a freeway. Suddenly about two dozen people have appeared, shambling along the side of the road, and started to attack the drivers trapped in their vehicles. The scene is horrible. It lasts less than a minute, but I’m still trembling. I swear they bit the drivers. That’s impossible. What the hell is wrong with these people?

Someone has opened the gates of hell, and you can feel the heat.

I’m not a practicing Catholic, but the events of the last twenty-four hours seem like divine punishment for some gigantic, collective sin of mankind. Or a huge monument to our stupidity. Depending on how you look at it.

Yesterday was long. In the morning as I ate breakfast, the news reported that riots have spread globally. A pattern is emerging. First, the government says there’s no reason to worry. Second, a quarantine is imposed. Next, panic ensues, and rioting and
looting break out. Then they declare martial law. After that, there are more riots, but they seem different—stranger, more localized, heavily censored, with very little information and no looting. And finally, silence.

That’s the pattern, but there are exceptions. In Chile yesterday morning, a general named Cheyre took advantage of martial law to mount a coup. A few hours later, a busload of Bolivian refugees was gunned down at the border, trying to get past a checkpoint. In retaliation, the Bolivian government shelled the Chilean border until Chile’s air force reduced the Bolivian artillery to scrap metal. That’s crazy. We’re on the brink of the abyss, and all they can think about is starting a war.

The news of the day: a briefing by the WHO’s Committee for Monitoring Compliance was broadcast worldwide yesterday afternoon. Every channel all over the world broadcast the same image. Not since man landed on the moon has there been anything like this. And there may never be again. Mind-blowing.

A committee of virologists appeared before the cameras. In a serious, guarded tone, they stated that the problem is a mutation of a filovirus transmitted by blood and bodily fluids (semen, saliva, and so on). They still don’t know if it’s transmitted through the air. The main symptoms are fever, disorientation, pallor, and, later, delirium and extreme aggression. If you see anyone with these symptoms, alert security forces. Under no circumstances should you try to make contact with the afflicted person, even if it’s a relative or a friend.

That’s it? What the hell are they getting at? What do they mean, “alert security forces”? Wouldn’t it be better to call an ambulance? At the end of the day, these are sick people. Right? Are they going to cure them with bullets? Why do I have the feeling they’re hiding something? I think there’s a lot they haven’t told us.

The Internet is a hotbed of rumors, each one more absurd than the last. An alien invasion, fluke parasites, mutants, the undead, mass brainwashing—take your pick. Let’s be rational, damn it. It’s a disease. Either you catch it or you don’t. If you catch it—
bam!
You’re done for. I’m still convinced there’s something more, something really horrible. If not, then why this unprecedented censorship? This is crazy.

I’m really worried about my sister. I haven’t been able to reach her since Saturday. Cell phone networks are overloaded. In some places they’ve shut down. After several repair crews disappeared, technicians refuse to travel without an escort. Private security companies are overwhelmed. The police, the army, and the Civil Guard are stretched thin on patrols, at quarantines, and at checkpoints. News of killings and disappearances are multiplying. In fact, they’re no longer news.

The US president was on TV. He’s at a presidential retreat. That’s a bad sign. He delivered a speech to the entire country, asking them to obey the army’s orders. He urged people to go to what he called Safe Zones. Safe Zones. Safe from what?

In Jerusalem, the pope, the chief rabbi, and the head Muslim muftis have come together to form one religious body. Any other time, that would’ve been moving, but they aren’t granting any audiences to the faithful for “safety reasons.” It isn’t exactly reassuring to see religious leaders on the Temple Mount surrounded by Israeli assault troops.

Our president is back on TV, along with the king. They announced the creation of fifty-two security forces, one in each province. They will team up with the national police, Civil Guard, and local and regional police. Army generals will lead the teams and will have full military authority over their assigned areas. The army will supply the weapons.

I tried to go see my parents this morning. I took Lucullus with me because I didn’t know how long it might take to get back. I put him in the passenger seat. His seat. Anyone who sits there invariably gets covered in cat hair. He can’t stand riding in his carrier. I hadn’t gone much more than a mile when I encountered an army checkpoint and had to turn back. I drove down a narrow country road that runs behind a housing complex and joins the main highway a couple miles later. Just when I thought I’d passed them, I came face-to-face with the local police at another checkpoint. Fuck! They know those back roads better than anyone. I tried to convince them to let me pass but got nowhere. They’re really nervous and scared. Who can blame them? Their job is usually to catch petty thieves, regulate traffic, and tow away illegally parked cars. Now they’re manning checkpoints, carrying army assault rifles with orders to shoot anyone who disobeys.

I’m back home now. I poured myself some whiskey, even though it’s still morning. I watched some more TV with the volume off and listened to police broadcasts on the shortwave. I don’t know what to think.

A helicopter’s circling the area. They’ve been at it all afternoon. From my upstairs window, I saw a couple of police cars drive down the main road. They seem to be looking for something. Or someone. They’re heavily armed. One police car even drove down the two short streets in our development to take a look. They shone their spotlight over all the walls, scaring the hell out of the woman in the corner house, who was outside at that time.

I went to the house of my neighbor, the doctor, to see if they were okay. His wife opened the door, her face haggard. She says her husband’s been at the hospital for seventy-two hours straight. She hasn’t heard anything from him since.

I went back in my house and double-locked the door, turned the shortwave back on, and listened to the police band. Usually it’s full of routine messages, like “Patrol Twenty-Seven, zone fifteen negative, proceed to zone sixteen.” There used to be some kind of funny ones, like the Civil Guard at a checkpoint ordering pizza. But now they were searching desperately for someone. All hell broke loose when a patrol reported a “hot spot,” whatever that means. Ten minutes later I swear I heard shots. They didn’t sound far off.

Twenty days have passed since this thing started. Today I heard shots in my city. Whatever this is, it’s getting closer.

I was dozing in front of the TV when I heard brakes outside. I ran to the upstairs bedroom that looks out on the main road. A patrol car stopped the Civil Guard at the entrance to our street. Two guards with assault rifles got out and ran past my house to the embankment at the end of my street. Beyond that embankment are some houses, and behind them, a highway. I couldn’t see where they were going.

Pretty soon they came back. A platoon of soldiers coming from the opposite direction was with them. They were nervous, and one soldier’s sleeve was stained with blood or some other dark substance. They continued on in silence and disappeared down the other end of the street.

I heard it again. I can’t swear to it, but I think I heard shots. And they sounded closer than before.

I went downtown to buy the newspaper or some magazines. There aren’t any newspapers. The delivery van couldn’t get through. On the way home, I noticed that most shops were closed. I found a small bakery open, so I bought some fresh bread. The worried-looking salesgirl whispered to me that last night she heard shots right next to her house, and something that sounded like “moans.” When she looked out the window, she saw an army truck pulling up at top speed.

I saw skid marks at the entrance to my street yesterday. Now I know I wasn’t dreaming.

I’m sitting in the garden, soaking up the winter sun, while I watch Lucullus, who’s staring ecstatically at a lizard scurrying along the wall. The helicopter’s flying tirelessly overhead again. The radio news reported that the government has created “Safe Havens” in the major cities, where they plan to concentrate people. They say around 80 percent of city dwellers can’t (or won’t) leave. Safe Havens. That’s a fucking joke.

At all hours of the day, they repeat that under no circumstances should you try to make contact with any person exhibiting erratic, odd, or disoriented behavior, or who shows signs
of violence. Even if it’s an acquaintance or relative. Yeah, right...
everyone
knows how dangerous sick people are to healthy people.

On top of all this, Channel 3 stopped broadcasting their regular programming. They’re running movies and prerecorded shows nonstop. Every forty-five minutes they broadcast a news update. News anchor Matías Prats looks like he’s been living on the set for days.