Infected, Zombi The City of the Zol

by Hernández, Claudio

  Foam started to emit from his mouth.

  His fingers started to contort into claws.

  He had now completely changed, and went for Sara with great speed. It was a monstrous fury, as he set upon Sara, holding the children.

  ‘No! No! What are you doing?’

  Sara only saw blackness as Tomás set his teeth into her neck.

  The other zombie that had entered bent down towards the children, Daniel and Rosa. Soon, they would be just like them. Everything happened so fast.

  CXLVI

  José crossed the bridge that led to the cemetery and took a left on Quico Maldonado Street, that would take them directly to Vicente Ruano Avenue. By car, the road was much more direct. The two vehicles were circulating at high speeds and the zombies were coming out from both sides of the road. They were being run over, cracking like broken shells. Many of them disappeared under the ICSC and the car gave various jumps, testing the shock absorbers.

  The front of the car was full of blood and fungal matter. The mucus that caked the cars was also very sticky. The windshield wipers caressed the glass with a loud noise, rubbing against the glass while José let out expletives.

  They were coming in close.

  The zombies, many of them old, walked slowly from the cemetery, not ceasing to cross the bridge, even as the lights that indicated the train came on. It was a gleam of lights just like the metallic grey Ford.

  The red Ford, driven by Jesús, was in the best conditions, as it had not hit any zombies at all nor was it stained with blood and puss.

  The sky was filled with the smell of burnt petrol and the sound of the carnival music, though, despite its distance, still didn’t let up.

  Without stopping, José drove into J. Jiménez Ruano Avenue, entering into hostile territory.

  They were home.

  Only a few more metres further to the right, one behind the other, with the precision of a scalpel, they entered into Calafria Street.

  Home.

  José hit the brakes and the tyres left a residue of rubber on the asphalt, that was already stained with dried blood. It was very dark, but made even darker by the tyre marks. Jesús as well, but he nearly dinged the other car.

  The street was completely deserted, except for a few bats flying overhead at a lower altitude. The lights of the street torches burnt bright.

  Inside the house there was a yellowish light that was poor and weak. Moments later, on the glass of the front window, the boys had seen Ángel and David peering at them, the tips of their fingers on the glass.

  Both car engines stopped in unison.

  The doors of both cars opened and closed in a few dry blows, but made whispering sounds.

  ‘We’re here!’ Antonio announced, leaning on the door. ‘Open up, I desperately need a cigarette!’

  ‘I’m coming bros!’ David said from the other end of the door.

  With that, there was a metallic noice that indicated that the locks were opening up in a soft jingling. The last link was stronger. The door opened.

  ‘Where are my fags?’ Antonio asked David.

  ‘Ángel! A fag, now!’ David didn’t smoke.

  All four entered the house, checking that all was well on the terrace, under the twinkling stars of the distant sky.

  Once there, Antonio lit up a cigarette between his dry lips, and told them of their adventure to the garage.

  CXLVII

  The second and the third float came out. Men dressed as women performed their choreography while the young man, now a zombie, plunged his teeth into one of them, which before had been his companion, raising his hand several times with a gesture of pain.

  People were laughing and clapping, but they fell to the asphalt thinking that the blood was catsup. The zombie, who had been his companion, threw himself to the ground to lick the viscous blood. Some women had an expression of disgust on her face and threw her head back. At the same time, they covered the eyes of their sons, all of whom departed quickly to see it.

  Was this part of the act?

  It was all very confusing.

  A few days ago, the civil guard had announced that the city of Águilas was in quarantine, but that was only heard by a small part of the city and the rest were tourists who had just arrived in car. They had found no difficulty in entering to the coastal city of Águilas. There was no road control.

  Nor were the police their with their flashing blue lights crossing the path of travel for the carnivals nor the television stations.

  Now, the whole city and half of Spain was there in the Parra Pass, clapping and laughing, not giving a fuck about anything else.

  Two zombies approached the one that was crouched on the floor licking the blood and one of them brushed against its shoulder. The walker did not turn his head or stop.

  ‘Oi! Mate, here is some more meat,’ they shouted, dropping a string of sausages near the entrails. People howled with laughter and music absorbed all the revelry.

  These two were not zombies, but rather costumed gents.

  Though the one on the ground was real.

  As were several of the older women who opened their tense mouths in the air, surrounded by their ex-partners, they also belonged to the other side now. The old woman grabbed the arm of one of the other old women who was pretending to dance with a glass of cuerva in hand, as a drunken man is subject to a grate of a window, and took her fingers to her mouth.

  The old woman’s smile gave way to an expression of pain and ignorance. She looked back and found that one of her fingernails had disappeared and only a bleeding finger remained. There was a very scandalous amount of blood that spurted from the potent lights of the event.

  Afterwards, the old woman began to tremble, lose balance in front of everyone, and her eyes began to sink into their sockets. Her lips formed a straight line expressing pain and more.

  Suddenly, she dropped her glass of Cueva, which fell to the ground spilling the contents as if it were liquid, transparent blood without platelets.

  The old woman began to convulse for a moment and stabilised, her eyes looking at other spaces, with watery white eyes that no one had ever seen.

  Now there were people pointing at her and others like her that were succumbing to the zombification process. Three of the men dressed in drag, with their small, red miniskirts and panties that crawled up their arses began to run very fast and tackle several of their companions.

  Their mouths were going for the jugulars, though on several occasions, to the hand. The blood was beginning to stain the asphalt red, uncoagulated.

  The fourth and fifth parade floats to come out were also infected.

  And they too became undead zombies.

  Among the crowd, there didn’t seem to be much more cheering, but rather shaking, trembling hands.

  The zombies began their assault and bit into both the big and small by the multitude. Some fell to the ground, but soon got back up. It was always the same routine, the same modus operandi.

  The most important thing that people began to say and see strange things. Finally, the music cut, and a deep voice said:

  ‘Run everyone! Something is happening!’

  The announcement could be heard throughout the city and, of course, on the Parra Pass. People began to look everywhere, disturbingly worried. Some were closer to the action, and realised what was happening. The ran away into the moonlight as witnesses.

  CXLVIII

  The big question is, how did they not know what was happening when it all began in the city centre? Did they not even know what a zombie was? Why had they left they home where there is clearly panic in the streets? Was it fear? Or ignorance?

  No, as you may have noticed, things do not happen in Águilas as the same time in all places. The city is considerably large. Not all of its inhabitants had seen what had happened in the Spanish Plaza, in two of the most popular beaches and playgrounds, among other places, about a week ago. The people, some
of them displaced persons, were still heading to the Northern Health Centre, where nurses with evil intentions awaited them with syringes in their hands. The people continued to watch the telly in their homes in the Rubial and Las Yucas areas of the city.

  There were also the various young ones who were hanging out on the beaches at night, further away from the centre.

  Though now, the zombies’ advance was much quicker than before, having now covered three quarters of the city. Now, the people knew that something strange was happening in the city, a city that was normally uneventful during the warm winter.

  The older gents of the “village”, as they are colloquially known, stayed behind in their homes, as they had been privy that something was happening since the first day. However, they refused to believe that it was the dead that had risen, instead believing that it was possibly some super-flu. They waited in their homes with their children and grandchildren, while others continued with their lives as if nothing had happened.

  The night was very ling and they took the streets and all of the heavily inhabited areas, including the Geraneos district, and now Los Collados. Soon, they would turn their sights to Calabardina.

  And the night went on in the midst of the zombie and infected maelstrom.

  Prelude

  Part Six

  Father Martín prayed with his followers at his side until dawn. During the night, chaos reigned between the living and the dead. The zombies and the infected, with a clear difference, made short work of the carnival and the thousands of people that had gathered there, trapped, with mobile phones in hand, giving them an opportunity to call their loved ones one last time, because something abnormal was clearly happening that night in the kingdom of the city of the Zun. At the beginning, everyone called their loved ones, but shortly afterwards, there was an overflow of calls and the network collapsed. No one could call in or out, not even the security forces.

  They continued advancing before the terrified looks of the thousands of poor souls, while the cemetery continued producing more and more walkers with fetid funerary shrouds full of shit, after their bodies had exploded from the putrefying gasses.

  Chaos and terror descended upon the carnival, where thousands of people began to panic and run en masse, many having died crushed under their feet. Lifeless bodies that the zombies left forgotten, but not the infected, who could bring them back with as little as a scratch. Just as Hins A-Akila did with his own army during his war against the Berbers and the Turks in the 16th century.

  Yes, the 16th century.

  Now everyone was privy to the zombie invasion, but unfortunately it was too late. Those that took the streets were at the point of ruling, even when the police reinforcements arrived and the undead army finally confronted each other.

  A few of them, the most powerful of the infected, almost discovered, ten centuries later, the secret to the second serum of life with Father Martín, who was now feeling how his muscles were beginning to rot, in an advanced state of putrefaction, who were turning against him.

  The castle itself, the stronghold since the beginning of time, hid the ultimate secret that all virus carries desired.

  And she, Akira Hins, the descendent of the king of the dead, was there.

  Part Six

  The end of the reign of the city of the Zol

  CXLIX

  ‘Tell the others to come down here and grab a bite to eat,’ Sebastián said, waving his hands up. ‘They are not going anywhere soon, and this place doesn’t bite. In fact, on the contrary, it’s probably the most secure part of the castle.’

  His lungs seemed like steam pipes.

  Álvaro was the one who decided to go search for his wife and the others.

  ‘I’ll go fetch them,’ he announced.

  ‘Go then! You have spoken!’ Javier barked, eyeing everything in the room, such as the little old man and the shelves. His finger was fixed on a can of tomato sauce.

  Álvaro didn’t even so much as look at him. He turned around and walked out of that immense, stone room. That bomb shelter. Again, Álvaro left down the hallway towards the surface of the castle. As he ventured into the corridor, he began to feel a bit of fatigue in the ascension and he felt a boost of speed to his heart. He began to listen once again to the moans of the zombies that were on the other side of the stone door that led to the sewer system.

  Are you sure you want to leave? Álvaro recalled, seeing against the face of that violet zombie explode under the impact of Javier’s shot. In that moment, he remembered that he had left his rifle on the surface of the castle.

  He had heard a splash and, after a few minutes, some animal like grunts. Álvaro crouched and continued his way through the long tunnel lined with torches.

  There he saw the group.

  He saw his wife Carmen, who was sitting on the floor with her hands crossed and her face eerily sweaty. His eyes must have caught a waif of dust because he suddenly couldn’t help but blink. Susanna was next to her, but standing, with one hand under her elbow as if she were holding a cigarette between her two fingers. In the sepulchral silence, there were echoes of the zombies’ moans, having already entered into the interior of the castle by some manner. Álvaro cracked a smile after having been lost in the labyrinth himself.

  ‘Carmen!’

  ‘Hello pickle! How glad I am to see you!’

  ‘It feels like forever!’

  Carmen got up from the floor without complaining, her stomach growling.

  ‘I thought for a moment that the end was coming, those noises are getting louder. They are coming closer.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come on down with us?’

  ‘I was afraid.’

  ‘Afraid of what? It would have been worse to stay here. This Sebastián bloke has led us to a true haven.’ Álvaro’s face lit up suddenly, and it had to have come from him, because at this point it was already midnight on the outside.

  ‘I suppose that I wasn’t thinking straight, what with all of these…’

  ‘Indeed, no more than five minutes and we were honestly worried,’ Susana said, cutting her off.

  Her blouse was wet and she could not hide the two large stains that had formed under her armpits.

  ‘Down below it is much cooler,’ Álvaro said, staring into her eyes. They were eyes dulled by fatigue, sleep, and hunger.

  ‘We thought that we would be safer here,’ the young Asian tourist said, with his slanted eyes almost closed. ‘All of us are afraid,’ he said, pointing to the rest of the group, sitting on the ground with their heads between their knees.

  ‘We are tired, thirsty, and hungry,’ he said, hesitating for a moment to think of something else to say. ‘We are numb, and very confused.’

  ‘Well we have dinner down below,’ Álvaro announced, closing in on his wife to give her a big kiss. This was reciprocated. It was a strange feeling that ran through them, forgotten by the past few days. It was a passionate kiss.

  ‘Oi oi! Save the kisses and romance for later!’ Susanna bellowed with a thin smile drawn across her face.

  Álvaro and Carmen both laughed.

  There were very few things to laugh at currently.

  The worst was yet to come, outside the castle.

  CL

  Akira Hins had found the next dirt road that would lead them to the next district. It was much bigger, much denser. It was the Los Collados district, about two kilometres from the Águilas city centre.

  There were many people, especially tourists especially nears the new hotels that had recently been built, towards the end of the brick road.

  This district was comprised of large slums of houses, all the same in colour and construction. Truth be told, they had all been built during the exact same phase. Though some were built on the plains of the land ceded by the city hall and others were raised on a few stony hills. On top of that, the district had a reservoir of drinking water that the whole district shared, as well as a telecommuni
cation centre and a repeater. Finally, as is to be expected, in the entry via the paved road, that is to say, the other entrance, there is a whorehouse on the right side of the road.

  Currently, everyone, except for the elderly and the whores, the women with joyous lives, were at the carnival.

  The infected, led by Akira Hins, faster than the rest, approached the district from the back through the dirt road under the sickly light of the moon.

  CLI

  The people began to run in anguish, with some bodies being crushed by the large crowd. They left behind the dead, lying on the ground, like rag dolls. They were inert and disfigured, their bodies twisted and crushed. The zombies passed over them without stopping and were increasing greatly un number.

  From the auditorium, the shouting and despair was palpable. However, in the port, at the end of the procession, they were still ignorant as to what was happening.

  Though the announcement to run was pounding, people wanted to know the meaning of the joke. A blanket of uncertainty covered the people when the music stopped, with distant screams clearly audible, but it was muffled by the sea waves and the quiet night. It wasn’t so for the rest.

  ‘Mum! Something is going on! The people were biting each other!’ Shouted a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes on her mobile. It was clear under the powerful lights that focused on the Parra Pass.

  ‘Biting?’ Asked another voice at the other end of the mobile line.

  ‘Yes, mum!’

  ‘Is it not part of the carnival choreography?’

  ‘Not at all! This is madness! I saw a man rip off a woman’s ear with his teeth! Then he held the ear in his teeth! Mum!’

  On the mobile, there was a long, tense silence.

  The girl was hysterical.

  Her hand shook.

  People ran as did they, the fastest of the infected. The zombies were slower and crashed against the crowd.

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ the other voice at the other end of the line said.