by Jackson Lear
There’s still no electricity so we can’t use the washing machine. We’ve all bundled our clothes into a big plastic tub on the balcony. While one person was manning that the rest of us jumped in the shower (one at a time, of course). Nine people waiting in line for the shower is not easy, but we made it. I was last. Rachel was already asleep on the mattress when I got here. It’s almost 9am. I’m using my backpack as an oversized pillow. The base of the bed is like lying on a wooden board. Still, we’re safe here, and feeling safe after the last couple of days is one hell of an improvement.
I’m pretty sure Rachel had been crying up here while I was downstairs. I see myself getting angry over the slightest of things, pissed off when one of my shoe laces comes undone when I’m walking, pissed off whenever I have to bend over with my backpack, pissed off thinking about all the blisters that are building up. I couldn’t even relax in the shower. A one minute shower is not ideal. Add to that all of my clothes are being washed and mixed up with Cristina’s, Rachel’s, and Ediz’s and we had to sort through all of them. Cristina snapped at me when I picked up her underwear. It wasn’t my fault. She grabbed the bundle of clothes out of the washing tub and something fell. It turned out to be a pair of her knickers and I picked them up off the ground. She grabbed them out of my hand and said something in Italian which couldn’t have been pleasant. I remember her saying ‘cazzo’. My Italian is nearly non-existent but I know when someone is swearing at me. Maybe she’s still pissed off that I walked off and then had the nerve to come grovelling back.
I should apologise when I see her next. I hope I can sleep. Second-wind wakefulness has kicked in and I’m still afraid that we’ll have to grab our stuff and run like hell in a moment’s notice. I have no idea where we could even run to. We’d have to out run the police, military, and the zombies with no real idea of where we are or where we’re going. I have the entirety of wikipedia on a flash drive and yet I don’t have a single map printed for any city that isn’t Madrid.
Please just let me sleep.
That didn’t last long. Rachel gasped and sat up. Much to our surprise Cristina was asleep next to her. I had no idea she even came in. When Rachel woke up it woke me up. She said, “Was that you?”
I thought I had farted or snored or something, but no. She just had a creepy dream and the stress got to her. I reminded her that there are twelve people in the house so she’s going to hear something. Cristina started to stir. She was supposed to be in Girl M’s room with the pint-sized Moroccan girl, but the Moroccan spent the whole time crying and Cristina had enough and left.
I tried to get back to sleep but I couldn’t. Once awake, always awake. It was just after 2pm.
I paid Guy A two euro for an espresso. He said it wasn’t a problem but I insisted. They have a percolator and a gas stove top. I need one of those to calm me down if I ever have to run from a zombie horde.
After leaving Cristina I went to find someone to talk to. Maybe the phones or the Internet worked in Getafe. Nope. Azeem was awake, Rachel was awake, the three Spaniards were awake. No one else. Azeem doesn’t speak much English. He can say, ‘Arsenal’, and ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ for some reason. J was pretty good with his English, having spent a semester in London.
Everyone has been told to stay indoors. The police have been going door to door to talk to people, letting everyone know what to do in an emergency. M told them they needed food. The police officer the other day said he had heard that a few times. I guess they will try to find a way to get food runs going. I mean you can’t seal off a city of four million people and let them starve.
A, not from the south of Spain, went out this morning for a secret food trip. Apparently there are quite a few roof-top farms. These guys grow oranges (useful for sangria, I guess). The neighbours grow carrots and potatoes, so they were trading a bucket of oranges for a bucket of potatoes and wishing each other well, that sort of thing.
Oh! One thing I forgot to mention. This house has run out of toilet paper. Now, most guys won’t see that as a terrible inconvenience until, well, it becomes absolutely necessary. The girls see it as the worst possible thing in the history of impossibly bad things. The Spaniards weren’t expecting to have to stay this long in Getafe, they were supposed to be home now, where the land runs full of toilet paper and the need for roof top farms is less urgent. As I stepped into the shower I noticed an odour … it wasn’t until I spoke to J where he warned me about the TP situation and I put two and two together – whoever had a shower before me had taken a dump (in the toilet) and then, without TP to clean themselves up with, had taken a shower to clean themselves. So there are little bits of shit floating across the bottom of the shower and I didn’t figure this out until after my shower was over. I thought it was just bits of dirt. Fucking awesome.
I won’t dare tell any of the girls.
After an hour and a half Cristina emerged, groggy, her hair looking as though she had just been shagged by a sex-crazed mad scientist. She asked if there was any coffee and wondered who she had to kill to get a decent brew in this country. A went off to his room and unpacked some more espresso. Cristina looked up in delight. Then out came some Italian wine. These Mediterranean people are not like us Channel people. They work to live and we live for disappointment.
I told A and the other Spaniards here that they are all welcome at any time in my long, long, very long life, that they can come and stay at my place. And if they prefer something better then I will find them somewhere to stay. Rachel said the same thing.
We were all talking about recent natural disasters around the world; tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, trying to figure out how long it took to restore power. We’ve been without it now for four days and it’s as boring as hell. People need to eat and get online. Thankfully, this house is equipped with gas tanks, but the fridge is now room temperature, and room temperature in the Spanish summer isn’t at all pleasant.
Some of the guys went up to the roof. There are a couple of hammocks up there. Rachel just came down to say it was really nice and we may have to spend the night here. The Spaniards don’t seem to mind but I know it is a terrible imposition. Tomorrow we will definitely leave. We’ll have to find an official who can help us, not just rat us out and cram us into another massive station where people get crushed to death.
31 July, daytime, part 3, I guess.
These hammocks are actually very good. Rachel is in the other one. Ediz and Azeem are talking near the edge while M is getting a roof-top update from one of the neighbours. Her husband works in the power plant and was told to go back to work today so maybe we’ll have power this evening?
We’ve been trying to figure out what to do. It’s clear we need to get out of Madrid. There was talk about hiring a car and all of us driving somewhere.
Problem one: we don’t have the cash to hire a car.
Two: the rental place won’t have electricity for us to use cards, unless we wait until the power comes back on.
Three: we’re several petrol refills away from any kind of destination and we might not be able to refill. It is much better being stranded in a city of four million people surrounded by the desert than being stranded in a car with four or five -
Holy shit, there’s a zombie!
It’s wandering up the road. Calle Toledo. He’s just walking in the middle of the street, lumbering forward. Just about everyone in the surrounding houses is looking at him. 4:43pm. No one is on the street. Everyone is at their windows, on the balconies, on the roofs, coming out to see what everyone else is looking at. That guy is definitely dead. His shirt is covered in blood. He looks like he’s missing some fingers on his left hand. He’s looking up with his head tilted to the side. His jaw is hanging open like he’s forgotten how to close it. He’s not groaning or saying anything, just stumbling forward. I’m sure he knows we’re all here. He must be able to see us, hear us, or at least smell us.
He’s getting closer.
The rest of the hou
se is up on the roof now, watching quietly. The Moroccan girl is crying.
How did something like this manage to attack Azeem’s friend? It must be building up its energy, storing it all for a single explosive attack.
There’s a trail of blood behind him. His right arm is covered in welts and sores. They might be bites where something took the skin off. There’s some yellow puss bubbling around one of the wounds, which is now dribbling down his arm. He looks like a walking disease.
One of the guys from another building is whistling, calling out to him. The zombie’s just walking forward like he doesn’t know where he is. Rachel’s gone to grab a camera. Unless this thing takes off in a hurry she will have plenty of time. Other people are whistling now, shouting.
And he’s still getting closer.
She’s back. Taking photos.
Where the hell is he going?
M says there isn’t much up the street, just a few quiet streets and the metro which is supposed to be closed. Then again, this dead guy has probably been walking for a while. I guess no one will be leaving the house until it’s gone and by then it will be dark. Far too dangerous. I wouldn’t let anyone out of my house if there was a zombie this close and on the loose.
We’re about to lose sight of him. I’m having to lock in on the spectators across the street as they can still see where he’s going. As long as they don’t suddenly freak out then the zombie will just keep wandering away.
No one will be sleeping tonight, certainly not with that thing out there, possibly climbing walls. Everything is brick around here with bars, cars, and industrial bins. It would be easy to climb the three or four storey buildings. Very easy. He could then walk across the roofs and break in if he wanted to.
People are pointing at it as it’s moving up the street. “That thing was talking before.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know, it was just talking.”
“To itself?”
“I think so. That’s what the last guy said.”
“What do you think it said?”
“Beats me. Probably asking God to let it still go to Heaven.”
That’s the gist of it. The dead are walking the Earth. There are a few atheists up here. No one is recanting yet. We still don’t know if it’s a virus and a brain-eating parasite. There is that fish aroma disease. People end up smelling like rotten fish. The zombie could have that. He could be dehydrated and have parasites in his brain, stinking everything up, regressing to a sluggish primal thing, trying to get help while being unable to speak. Maybe he’s partially paralysed.
Hell, he could be anything. Right now we’re going with ‘dead’. His appearance is dead, his smell is dead, his communication is dead, he’s acting like a zombie, so until further notice we’re calling him a zombie.
Everyone is still off the streets, looking around to see if there’s another one. We’re getting some updates about where he’s going, passed down again like Chinese whispers. It sounds as though he was heard mumbling again. Or groaning. Maybe that was the original whisper and is now on the return. Mumbling or groaning.
Part 4.
What a day. I’ve seen the dead walk the Earth, I’m a fugitive, I stormed off from the people who were trying to save me out of the kindness of their hearts only for me to come grovelling back, I found refuge with students, ate a dozen oranges and then got hiiiiiiiigh.
Yes sir, after that kind of day the Spaniards looked at each and decided, ‘Fuck it, let’s smoke.’ Everything after that became hilarious. Ángel, not from the south, has a friend who was going to take care of the plants while the guys were back home for the summer. Heh. The guy, also called Ángel … I mean ‘A’. Not Ángel. Aaaaaaaa. Crap. Still stoned.
Heh.
So. Right.
Rachel is giving me a weird look. It’s probably because I was talking out loud, you know, “Not Ángel …” and he, A, kept saying, “Si, Ángel.” I shook my head. “No. A. Not Ángel.” “Si, si, Ángel. Meh yamo Ángel ee oosted …” I can’t remember the rest.
Rachel and Cristina are laughing at me. No idea why.
A2, also known as Ángel 2, came over. He was going to take care of the plants over the summer, bring them back to his place, probably smoke them all. He came over so now we have two Ángels and we’re up to thirteen people now. Or fourteen? Can’t remember.
A2 said he heard the zombie talking, or murmuring. He couldn’t quite hear. I didn’t think zombies could talk. But considering zombies can’t be real, it is reasonable to hypothesize the perchance of possibility that Mr Zombie, sir, is not in fact a zombie, but a real human being of severely lowered levels of motor and cognitive functionaroonies, so speaking is as natural to a humano as is walking around. Yep. See?
I see.
Good shit.
They didn’t want us smoking in the house or on the roof. Kind of a problem then. They spent all last week clearing out the smoky smell from their rooms since the landlord lady will be looking over the house to make sure everything is still where it should be. They say they don’t smoke all that often. They say that Lady M from the south (why is everyone from the south in this country? No one is ever from ‘here’, except for A2, but he doesn’t count because he’s not from this house he’s from the other one over there, so he’s not really from ‘here’, but from ‘over there’) -
Okay, Cristina just asked why I write the way I do, on the wrong side of the paper. It’s because I’m left handed. I write on every page but not on every side of the page. I can’t write with the spiral metal binder thing bumping against my hand whenever I start a new line, and I seem to start a lot of new lines. So I write on the back of the paper, which for me is the front.
Lady M … south girl … she likes to smoke the stuff. Not quite a wake and baker but more of a casual joint at the end of the day. Or two joints. I don’t know, I never met the girl. I can tell you she isn’t studying medicine. You can’t smoke and study medicine, it doesn’t work. You never get any studying done. Maybe she’s doing law.
The guys had to de-smell the house so we took turns on the private balcony with its shutters up so no one can see us. Real paranoid feeling, you know? Then we came up to the roof and looked out for more zombies or sub-humans or infected-humans as they might later be known as. Then we came down to smoke some more and went back up. I’m not a big smoker. But … zombies! How could you not want to get high when there are zombies walking around on the same fucking street as you are hiding out on!
One thing we kinda neglected to think about. Hunger. Yeah. We’re holding back on the munchies but we’re going to town on the oranges.
Cristina says she used to work in a rehabilitation centre as a receptionist. There were people who had to learn how to walk and talk again after strokes and accidents. It’s kinda creepy to think that if that guy down there really is a zombie then he has more motor control and better speech than some stroke victims.
You can’t exactly get the army out here and shoot everyone that is sick like that. You have to capture them, take them in, study them, then try to cure them. I mean, we don’t go around and shoot people with the flu, do we? Or cancer? Fuck, if you shot everyone with cancer then there goes half the population.
It’s sexy how they greet each other here with a kiss. One kiss on each cheek. I was embarrassing myself when I first got here. I gave them the English kiss, which is about a foot away from their cheek. They laughed at me. They need actual cheek on cheek contact for it to count as a kiss or else you’re being rude or being a dumb foreigner. Not with the guys, though, that’s still a handshake. But if you’re a girl then you get to kiss everyone. Sexy.
The only one who looks like she’s not having any fun here is the Moroccan girl. She’s talking to Azeem. He’s high and nodding a lot, barely paying attention, but she’s balling her eyes out. Maybe she lost her friends or family in Atocha.
It’s really hard to do anything here. The power is still off and it’s getting dark. I won�
��t be able to add anything until it gets brighter, or until the moon comes out, otherwise it will be random writing without any lines to guide me and I’ll be writing over previous writing because I can’t see it. I had a look at what I wrote last night and it’s all over the place. My writing gets smaller at the end of the sentence and it goes up at an angle, so a lot of my sentences have criss-crossed each other.
We’ve been talking about how to prove if that guy was a zombie or not. I know there are several tests to see if someone is dead. You check their breath, see if their eyes dilate or contract when you shine a light into them, you tickle them, you cause them pain like by pushing a pen against their fingernails, you check their pulse, and if none of that works then they are probably dead. Now, this zombie might fail all of those tests, except that he’s still walking around with some kind of brain function.
Perhaps we could introduce a basic human test. We enjoy self preservation. We like cute things and little luxuries. We don’t like annoyances. So, we try this: leave a kitten meowing in front of the zombie. If the zombie eats the kitten then it’s obviously not human. If it ignores the kitten then it’s not a cat person, so we try it with a puppy. That’s the cute part of the test. The self preservation part comes with a guy and a shotgun. There isn’t a human alive who doesn’t know what a shotgun looks like. We point it at the zombie. If the zombie makes no effort to protect itself, no effort to surrender, it just keeps advancing, then it has no regard for its own ‘life’ and would not be a human, unless it has lost so much brain function that it can’t recognise the danger and is just approaching a comforting human (who is probably shouting at said zombie). Then we add the electric fence element. We surround the zombie on most sides with an electric fence and allow one exit. If the zombie can find the exit then it has enough brain activity to be worthy of a human.
Finally, we stick the zombie on an airplane for sixteen hours behind a screaming baby. If the blood pressure of the zombie doesn’t increase by the end of the trip then it’s not human.
