The house I chose — an ugly three-storey red brick — stood where many years ago my Granddad's old log cabin had been. It looked as if the new millionaire settlers had decided to keep the area as a holiday retreat, only that their idea of a country cottage somewhat differed from ours. My choice was mainly dictated by nostalgia: I found the trees where I'd played as a child; I cried, hugged them and talked to them, telling them I was back home for good. At that moment, I completely forgot about my plans to try and make it as far as Italy or Greece — you may laugh but I did consider it for a time: although it didn't really matter where to live any more at least I could find a place with a warmer climate. The birds were singing their heads off, just like in the good old days. Their presence, too, signaled that there were no zombies around — or at least not many.
I have to admit that reminiscing got the better of me. So nice it was to come across something you could call your own in the world of violence and madness. But I didn't let my emotions stay in the way of my safety measures. Having inspected the mansion and the grounds, I decided it would do for a long-term stay. As the last fashion had dictated, the house faced an open area sewn with Canadian lawn, unnaturally green and loud, and all the young trees and shrubs had been cut down. This unsightly landscape had its pluses: the area provided a good lookout as well as — if need be — a good shootout.
I knew I wouldn't be able to hold the fort on my own in an enormous house like that. It wasn't accommodating for defense strategies, anyway. Its inhabitants had relied on the agglomeration's security force so the house didn't even have shutters nor a steel door. But downstairs, I discovered an excellent concrete cellar, complete with a sauna, a pool room, a wine cellar and a lounge. This Aladdin's cave was secured with a wonderfully thick steel door with heavy bars on the inside, worthy of an antinuclear bunker.
Surprisingly enough, the door stood wide open. Downstairs, I found a good stock of canned foods, a diesel generator and heaps of various stuff, apparently brought from upstairs in a great hurry. I could use some of it, for sure.
In the house itself, the rooms didn't differ much from the street outside; broken windows failed to separate the indoors and outdoors; the once-parquet floors were buried under a layer of earth. The wind sent dry last-autumn leaves flying over a complex pattern of dust.
In the lounge, on a once-expensive leather couch in front of a cobwebbed flat screen, sat the remains of what must have been a man, judging by whatever scraps of clothing he had left on. Next to him on the floor, a fancy gold-inlaid hunting gun lay by an empty whiskey bottle and something that turned out, once I'd wiped off the dust, to be a gold-plated cell phone. In my time, a thing like that had cost a fortune.
On the wall above the couch, you could make out a few faded brownish spots, same color as the dry spot that surrounded the body. You got the picture.
I found no more dead bodies in the house, neither zombies, nor any signs of their activity. It was a good sign. I have this weak spot, I just can't stay in a place if I know they used it as shelter. They befoul everything they touch. I would be hard pressed to spend a night in a place like that, let alone live there permanently.
I decided not to bury the landlord. I didn't touch anything upstairs at all, to preserve the atmosphere of desolation. The cellar suited me fine: in the past year, I'd come to consider cellars as humanity's biggest architectural achievement after bunkers and bomb shelters. The cadaver's rancid company didn't bother me: in the new world, dead bodies made a necessary part of the environment. Or, as the case be, of interior decoration. So I went downstairs, locked the door and slept well for the first time since the disaster. I was back home, finally.
III
I'd been living in my new home for almost a month: alone, safe and comfortable. Later I met another living human being, and the encounter changed my life and my future. I'll tell you about it in due time. But first I need to record a rather insignificant episode that left a deep impression on me. It probably doesn't even belong in this diary, but seeing as it happened, it deserves being mentioned.
Having made myself comfortable in my Aladdin's bunker, I finally got some rest after the month-long hike from hell. I did nothing but eat and sleep. When I recovered a bit, I ventured on a few recce outings. First, I investigated the house I now owned — that was when I found a leather-bound diary in the defunct landlord's office and decided to put it to use (I'm talking about my first diary, now lost). Gradually, I ventured further away from the house which gave me some idea of what had happened here. I can't say I was expanding my property as with every new day, I could expect all sorts of nasty surprises past the front door. But at least houses didn't mutate and remained houses, and the trees stayed trees.
One such morning I came to the bank of a nearby river. It was no discovery: as a kid, I had bathed in it a thousand times. But now the stretches of fields along its both banks concerned me. An open place can occasionally be a blessing, but more often than not it isn't. This part of the conglomeration had suffered many changes, too. What used to be corn fields were now plots of land next to once-expensive villas. Abandoned and dilapidated, many of them also bore signs of fire damage. Because of those houses, my water-fetching trip — a hundred yards at most — took me almost an hour: all this skulking around, bounding about, creeping and crawling proved too tiring. I hadn't met a single zombie on my way, not even a single sign of their possible presence in the area. The birds sang, the sun beamed down, the air was so fresh it made your head go round; one of those beautiful days that make you realize what a wonderful thing life is. I approached the water, all soppy, but with my SMG at the ready. I stood on the edge of a concrete dam once used as a pier for the local pleasure boats, and listened to the waves. Could I go for a swim without letting go of my weapons or without making them wet? I didn't even consider the possibility of leaving my guns ashore: in those days, it would be absolute madness to do so. By the way, I didn't know then — and I still don't — whether zombies could swim. In the course of my hike, I'd once seen a few dead bodies floating down the river with no signs of life, so I couldn't tell whether the bodies were infected or not. Often, the unknown frightens us more than a familiar threat, however real. I basked in the sun staring at the water. Thinking. Then an object crossed my gaze making me freeze. My stomach knotted; I broke out in a sweat.
The object was a paper boat: clean and white, as if freshly launched.
I turned to stone, clenching the gun until my fingers cramped. This innocent incident defied reason. A zombie can't make a paper boat for apparent reasons. A grownup survivor like myself wouldn't do something of the kind, either. A kid? Here? Where would a kid come from to a place like this? I hadn't seen a living child even since I left the city.
I stood there, wary of the slightest motion, and watched the paper boat swamp and go underwater. Finally, it sank. The white spot quivered and faded as it submerged deeper and deeper into the dark.
My petrified body forced itself free from the shock. I lunged back, the gun ready to kill anything that moved. But neither behind me nor to my flanks could I see anybody. Ashamed of my impulse — I wouldn't have shot a child, would I? — I walked upstream, totally embarrassed, inspecting the shrubs that covered the river bank and watching the houses nearby.
I had a funny feeling that whoever had made the little boat was watching me from his cover. After about an hour I finally realized I wasn't going to find anyone. The stupidity of my actions added to my embarrassment, replaced with desperation: just think there was another living being in the area, possibly a child even, someone I wasn't likely to ever meet.
I overcame my wariness and, softly, called the stranger. No one replied. I raised my voice a little. Raised it some more. In the end I was running up and down the bank between the houses screaming at the top of my voice. Luckily, my shouting didn't attract any unwanted attention, but whoever I'd addressed didn't come out into the open, either.
I went home, shattered. Needless to say the next day
I was back on the bank looking for the creature that liked riddles.
It lasted for about a week. I already started doubting I'd seen the paper boat at all and, having no trust in my bruised mind, I left all further attempts and didn't go anywhere near the river. I wish I could tell you the answer to that riddle but I didn't find it.
I didn't give up investigating the grounds after this little incident; however, I tried to stay away from the river. I had my own reasons to venture out, and curiosity had nothing to do with it. The primal habitat provided a lucky survivor with enough dangers to last him a lifetime — or, more often, to cut it short. This time I was faced with banal malnutrition. A year's worth of living out of tins and army ration boxes, combined with incessant fight-or-flight stress, manifested itself with considerable gum bleeding. My teeth became loose and my overall condition deteriorated by the hour: I constantly felt weak and sick. In one of the looted drugstores I helped myself to a multi formula and tried to take it regularly, but I couldn't seriously expect them to work. I felt deep in my whole body that whatever I ate wasn't real food that Mother Nature intended for human beings. I kept craving something wholesome, like fruit and veg, or even some greens. I did try to eat tree leaves and grass, but, a second-generation city dweller that I was, I couldn't tell which ones were good, so my indulgencies resulted in the most awful diarrhea.
Only then I realized that my decision to stay in the affluent part of the suburbs hadn't been my best idea: here, you couldn't expect to see any vegetable allotments. When the local population wanted fruit and veg, they went to the supermarket — and there, any remains of fresh produce had gone rotten already a year ago. It encouraged me to widen the perimeter of my search. After everything I'd been through, it would have been ridiculous to starve to death in the summer forest.
Daytime, I prowled about the grounds, going further and further away every time. Once I was in luck: after a depressing sequence of acre after acre of tennis courts and golf fields I came across an old farm which, from what I remembered, they used for horse breeding. It was surrounded by vast fields sewn with carrots and some green stuff I didn't know the name for. Both must have been used for fodder although of course, no one would have planted them last year: this Godsend was nature's work untouched by human beings. The vegetables could be meant for horses, but both my body and myself couldn't be happier. I visited the field every other day to stuff myself silly with carrots and bring back home an equally stuffed backpack.
Soon it turned out that I wasn't the only visitor: I came across several hares that used the field as their diner. When I first noticed them, I looked forward to hunting and enjoying some fresh game. Catching one seemed simple enough: they weren't afraid of me and allowed me quite close. My shooting skills, too, had improved, considering I only had expired humans as my targets, but I thought there wouldn't be much difference. In my past life, I was never really interested in hunting or fishing; actually, I don't think I'd ever seen a hare apart from on TV. But it didn't seem that difficult.
Finally, I took the plunge. I thought everything over beforehand: I had to kill it, then to take it to a safe place, but not at home, in order not to jeopardize my shelter. I'd skin and clean it, then roast it and, the best part, would eat it.
Then it was the day of the hunt. I waited for the hares to arrive and tried to get closer to them. The hare I'd chosen as victim seemed to have noticed me: he stood up and looked in my direction, attentive. But then he relaxed and continued feeding, the distance between us being about 40 meters.
I took aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet nicked him; but the hare wasn't killed, only wounded. Despite me being slightly deafened by the shot, I couldn't help but hear his scream. This was the kind of thing you never forget. That's probably how dying children scream. I felt lost but I had to do something: anyone could have heard the shot and his scream and that wasn't a good sign.
I ran up to the hare: the bullet had hit him in his side and he was squirming in agony. His whole little body was covered in blood; blood poured out of the wound and bloody froth came out of its mouth.
In the past year, I'd seen a good sea of blood and more than my fair share of violence, but the agony of a tiny helpless creature shattered me. I stood there motionless, not daring to finish him off and realizing the brutality of my indecisiveness. I cursed my hunting idea and hated myself wholeheartedly.
God only knows how long I'd stood like that, when a shot resounded right next to me. The poor animal jerked one last time and lay motionless in the dust. Startled, I jumped aside to face the threat and jerked the gun out.
In front of me, thick shrubs provided good cover so the shooter wasn't in a hurry to come out. A few seconds passed in the silence so tense you could hear gnats buzzing over the shrubbery.
Finally, a man's voice in the bushes ordered me to put the gun down, step aside and kneel with my hands behind my head. I let the stranger know that I didn't think it was a good idea at all. We engaged in a rather strange conversation discussing the conditions of my surrender, while I weighed up my chances to escape — which neared zero in a virtually open carrot field — or to shoot the stranger by firing a good round into the bushes, which didn't sound too promising, either.
When I finally accepted the bad turn of my fortune, the man came out of the shrubs. Dressed in camo fatigues, the man was about forty, short and gray, with a gray moustache on a good-humored face.
He made a point of lowering his gun, identical to mine, and said that I looked like a decent man and he didn't see reason to kill me. Then he identified himself. His name was Alexander — "but you can call me Alex", he said.
This turn of events completely disarmed me: I, too, lowered the gun and gave him my name. He came up to me and we shook hands. My first handshake and first normal conversation in the whole year drove me to near tears. I was still shaking from the brush with death which I'd escaped and the poor hare hadn't. But I was also happy to have finally met a living human soul after all the months of my travels, even though we'd very nearly killed each other off.
Alex picked up the hare, wrapped it in a piece of tarpaulin and attached it to his backpack. He asked me whether I'd like to join him for dinner. I was happy to oblige.
IV
We crossed first the field, then the motorway blocked by fallen trees and entered a small town. I'd heard about it before but never had the chance to visit it before the epidemic, and now it didn't differ much from other places I'd been to, with broken windows, burned-out cars and the wind tousling the remaining scraps of corpses' clothing.
Alex motioned me to a high-rise apartment block. Cautiously, we advanced. No zombies in sight — there hadn't been many around lately — and definitely no sign of any surviving humans. It took us some time to climb the seventeen stories up the fire escape until we reached the attic. Just before the last flight of steps, Alex motioned me to stop and pointed at a length of thin wire strung just above the floor level. Its other end was attached to a hand grenade tied to the banister. The grenade was positioned so that it exploded at stomach level, destroying two flights of steps into the bargain. I liked the idea although the purpose of other contraptions remained unclear: empty tins, bits of colored ribbons and even a little dog bell dangled on several lengths of string stretched to all sides of the trip wire.
Alex pointed at the coal graffiti on the wall: the sign said, "Careful! Trip wire!" The walls around were covered in brownish spots and pockmarked with shrapnel. Alex explained that about a month previously, one of his men, Victor, forgot about the wire and tripped over it as he was leaving the roof. The ribbons, tins and especially the little bell were supposed to prevent such accidents in the future.
We navigated the wire maze and approached a steel door to the attic. Alex removed the padlock, pushed the door open and motioned me inside. One more door to unlock, and we came out onto the roof.
I liked his practical streak. The roof sheltered a proper surveillance point: a tent complete with a camp bed
, mattresses and sleeping bags, as well as some plastic tables and chairs. It offered perfect visibility for miles around.
Alex handed me a pair of binoculars and, with a smile, pointed in the direction he wanted me to look. So he must have been watching my carrot field trips for weeks! On a length of tarpaulin under the camp bed, a sniper's rifle, a submachine gun and some unidentifiable weapons gleamed with grease. All that time, I had been courting death without even knowing it. Well, I had to thank Alex for his mercy and generosity.
I liked him at once. There was this Clint-Eastwoodish aura of security about him, although he was a short man, bronzed but gray-haired, rather stocky but cheerful — talkative, even. He was actually the opposite of Eastwood with his short gray moustache that once must have been jet-black, but still this feeling of their inner likeness wouldn't go. Before the war and the epidemic Alex must have been a cheerful man, and you could still sense whatever was left of that cheerfulness in him.
I write so much about him — despite the lack of space and time in this diary — for two reasons. Firstly, since the moment I met him I sensed a friend in him, and the feeling was probably mutual. In the short time we had left we did indeed become comrades. You have to agree that my only friend in the world full to the brim with malice and frustration deserved a few words of appreciation.
Secondly... the second reason is more materialistic, in fact. In my travels, especially last year when I was still looking for my family, I'd met all sorts. I listened to their stories which were more or less the same: contented people living their relatively happy lives when "all that shit broke loose", followed by gory details I'd known only too well. For months I hadn't heard anything else and was craving some good news. And Alex, he had it — maybe not as good as in good, but good enough.
Call Me Human: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel Page 3
