We stared at each other. The Ukrainian shook his head, and I cussed under my breath. We both knew what came next.
Shit, I thought. We had to get back out there. We had to stick our nose out of our little hole, whether we liked it or not.
After we’d made that decision, we headed back to Numantia to bring Sister Cecilia and Lucia up to speed. The look of dread on Lucia’s face when she heard what we were planning was almost comical.
As she helped me get into my patched wetsuit, she nervously chattered away nonstop, reminding me of a thousand things not to do. “Don’t take any chances, don’t go into dark places, don’t go near anything suspicious, don’t wander too far from Prit…”
I tried to calm her down, for my sake as well as hers. I was getting more nervous by the minute. Lucia isn’t a hysterical person, but the possibility that something would happen to us outside that refuge really got to her.
Finally, Prit and I were ready. We were armed with assault rifles the army had left behind. I was also carrying the speargun across my back, with a spear loaded and two more strapped to my right calf. The Ukrainian, decked out in an awful fuchsia tracksuit so bright it hurt your eyes, had a huge hunting knife tucked in a holster. He chewed some gum mechanically and was surprisingly calm.
We agreed that the best way out was through the elevator shaft. We wouldn’t have to go back through the dark hospital, plus it was the fastest way out. Once we were in the storeroom on the top floor, all we had to do was open a window to get a view of the entire valley surrounding the hospital.
We soon discovered that climbing up the elevator cables was harder than it looks in the movies. They were covered in grease, and the noise we made as we climbed should’ve attracted a legion of those monsters. But as far as we could tell, things were going our way. At least for a while.
After struggling to the top floor, Prit eased the elevator door open, ready to duck back inside at the first sign of danger. I kept the cable as taut as possible. If there was trouble, we could slide back down to the ground floor.
Prit slithered behind the door like an eel and disappeared out on to the upper floor. For fifteen long seconds, I didn’t hear a sound. Just when I thought my nerves would snap, the Ukrainian slipped back behind the door and signaled that the coast was clear. Strangely clear.
For the first time in months, I felt sunlight directly on my skin. It felt so good that I stood stock still for a moment, enjoying that wonderful sensation. We were standing in a warehouse on the top floor. From there we’d ventured out into the ambulance garage. Sunlight was streaming in the heavy metal gate trucks used to drive through, which had been left wide open during the evacuation. That discovery made my stomach clench. With that door open, there was nothing to keep the undead from wandering around this huge room. But there wasn’t any sign of them.
Prit and I peered out. It was a beautiful late summer day. Although the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky, the windchill from a strong north wind made it very cold. That wind also carried the strong smell of burning wood. Even I could smell it now.
My gaze swept nervously from side to side as I tried to detect any suspicious activity, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Only dozens of birds darting everywhere, completely disoriented. The air was so charged with electricity it almost crackled.
Suddenly Pritchenko elbowed me in the ribs. I looked in the direction he was pointing. Over the hills at the end of the valley, about a mile away, rose a thick column of smoke. Enormous black spirals twisted and turned with a fury. An evil glow dyed the horizon orange, adding a sinister, surreal touch to the landscape.
I stood there, horrified at what I saw. A fire. A huge, uncontrollable forest fire. A couple of days before, a strong storm with a lot of thunder and lightning but no rain had hit in the area. Maybe lightning from that storm started that fire. Or a gas cylinder left out in the sun for months. Or a hundred other damn things I could come up with. No way to say for sure.
All I knew was that with no one to fight that fire it was reaching terrifying proportions, destroying everything in its path. As if someone had read my thoughts, a powerful explosion shook the air. A huge orange fireball rose over the horizon. The fire had just devoured a car, probably more than one, given the size of the explosion. That fire was becoming a monster.
Then I suddenly remembered the strange lack of undead in the area. I wondered if something had warned them to escape the flames. Wouldn’t surprise me. Those creatures seemed to be driven by the same basic instincts as animals. One of the most basic impulses of nature is self-preservation.
Somehow the undead had perceived the danger and left for safer areas. Or maybe the flames had trapped hundreds, maybe thousands, of them. Even so, there’d still be millions of those lost souls wandering around. No, the fire wasn’t the solution to the problem. It posed an even greater problem. And we survivors certainly didn’t need any more problems. We could hardly keep our heads above water as it was.
A couple of wild boars ran out of the tangled patch of weeds the front garden had become and raced across the deserted parking lot, fleeing the wall of flame. Prit and I looked at each other. The animals were following their instincts and getting the hell out. We should follow their example. You didn’t need finely honed instincts to figure that out. One look at the edge of the fire and the direction the wind was blowing told us that the hospital would be engulfed in a couple of hours, four at the most. There was no time to lose.
We quickly rounded the southern wall of the hospital toward the parking lot, where we’d left the SUV months ago. I remembered I’d left the passenger door wide open, and a couple of those things had gotten inside. We didn’t know what we’d find, but we were pretty sure the SUV’s battery would be completely dead. I wasn’t sure I’d turned off the headlights when I dragged Prit out of the car. Just in case, at the bottom of my backpack was a brand-new battery we’d scavenged from the ambulance repair shop.
As we rushed around, switching the new battery for the old one, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu. It was the same situation we’d lived through months before, when we landed at the port of Vigo. Only now we weren’t flying blind like before. And we didn’t have a bunch of armed Pakistanis hovering over us. That made a huge difference. I wondered what became of the crew of Zaren Kibish. As far as I was concerned, they could burn in hell.
The motor coughed a couple of times, hesitated, then started up. Just then, the first flames broke over the hills near the hospital. The sky was bright orange, and the smell of smoke was getting stronger. The wind had picked up, and the temperature had risen a couple of degrees. The situation was getting uglier by the minute.
We drove around the building without seeing a single one of those monsters. Crunching on the dry gravel, we pulled the SUV up to the tunnel leading to the storeroom. Prit waited in the car with the engine running while I shot down the greased elevator cable to the bottom floor.
Sister Cecilia and Lucia were waiting near the elevator car, looking really worried. You could smell the smoke in the basement now. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw wisps of smoke floating in the light of the magnesium lamps.
I quickly brought them up to speed. A huge fire was approaching the hospital. There was no way to contain it; it would reach us in about an hour and would burn the place to the ground. Even the undead had fled as fast as their battered bodies would take them. We had to get out now, or we’d be burned to a crisp.
Their reaction was more serene than I’d imagined. I’d had a mental image of a meltdown or even an outright refusal to leave the safety of the basement, but they took the news in stride. Lucia went to retrieve the emergency backpacks we’d packed. The nun asked if there was a way to unlock the elevator and get it back in operation. “There are many things this nun can do,” she said, “but climbing up a cable covered in grease is not one of them. So move your butt, my son, or you’ll have to take me out the long way, and that would take too much time.”
I smiled, shaki
ng my head, too impressed to speak. Those two were made of strong stuff. They had to be to have survived on their own for so long and endured that hell without getting devoured. Where big, hairy-chested men had collapsed like a broken spring in the face of difficulties, those women just gritted their teeth and kept on going. They were definitely not delicate, prim, and proper ladies. Just the opposite.
Just then, Lucia came back around the corner, piled high with two huge army backpacks and another one in tow. We’d packed everything we thought we’d need when it came time to leave—dozens of freeze-dried army ration packets, a huge first-aid kit that could treat a regiment, ammunition, flares, my shortwave radio (with no batteries, since a sailor on the Zaren Kibish had decided he needed them), liters of water, and God knows what else.
I heaved the heaviest backpack on to my back and helped Lucia put hers on. Despite Sister Cecilia’s indignant protests, I didn’t let her carry the third backpack. Lucia and I dragged it and the box with Lucullus in it. Things hadn’t gotten so bad that a woman her age had to carry a backpack that weighed as much as she did.
Before we got in the elevator, I took one last look around and felt a twinge of nostalgia. I’d lived an almost normal life there for months. It might’ve been the only safe place with electricity, water, food, and comfort for many miles. Not only did we have to leave, but it would be engulfed in flames in minutes, and there was nothing we could do about it. The thought that such a wonderful place was going to vanish made my heart sink. I smiled, bitterly aware of the strange irony underlying that thought. To us a dark, locked basement, full of food smells, the walls covered in damp condensation, seemed wonderful. That was fucked up.
I stuck the ivory rosary the nun had left on a table into my pocket and walked slowly to the elevator, where the women were waiting for me. I didn’t bother to turn the lights off. What did it matter? The Titanic had gone down with all its lights on too. And the orchestra playing on the deck.
After a quick inspection, I realized the elevator would be surprisingly easy to unblock. I just had to remove a huge soup ladle someone had wedged into the gap that allowed the door to close. When I pulled it out, the door snapped shut with a deafening metallic screech. Almost immediately, the cabin started to rise slowly, with very unsettling jolts.
Our ascent was slow and tense. Smoke filtered through the vents, drying our throats. Its acrid smell became more intense. I kept picturing dozens of those things waiting patiently at the top for the special of the day. I pictured dozens of eager mouths, outstretched arms reaching into the elevator to tear us apart and devour us.
I squeezed my eyes shut; I was breathing really fast. I couldn’t do a thing, not a damn thing…
A hand rested on my arm. I opened my eyes and saw the calm look on Lucia’s face. She squeezed my arm affectionately and whispered warmly in my ear, “Take it easy. Everything’ll be all right.” Then she gave my earlobe a playful, not-so-innocent nibble that almost sent me through the roof of the elevator. Naughty girl.
The elevator came to a stop with an even stronger jolt. The door was stuck, after not being used for so long. It wouldn’t open all the way, so we had to push on it. Once outside, we stopped, overwhelmed by what we saw.
Clouds of smoke enveloped the grounds and the parking lot, reducing visibility to about an eighth of a mile. Everything glowed an unhealthy red, like a scene out of hell. We could clearly see the flames moving over the hills. When the fire breached the hills, it flew downhill, devouring everything in its path. A huge stand of eucalyptus trees was engulfed by the flames. The heat was so intense, they exploded like matches thrown into a fireplace. Thousands of sparks flew everywhere, carried by the wind whipped up by the fire. Some of those sparks fell on highly combustible dry underbrush, starting new fires. The situation was much more chaotic than we’d foreseen. The gusting wind had pushed the fire along even faster than we anticipated. In less than fifteen minutes, it would be licking the hospital’s walls.
Our eyes tearing from the smoke, we reached the SUV. Even though its lights were on, it was almost invisible in all the ash and fire. A restless Prit was waiting for us next to the SUV, beckoning for us to hurry, all the while monitoring the entire area. I noticed he’d taken the safety off his rifle, something that hadn’t occurred to me. Once a soldier, always a soldier. Those precautions must be etched into his subconscious.
While everyone stuffed packages into the trunk, I slipped into the driver’s seat. In this situation, I preferred to take the wheel. I’d had enough of the Ukrainian driving experience—the last thing we needed was an accident.
When everyone was aboard, we sped away in a cloud of dust, sending gravel flying in all directions. The scene was right out of Dante’s Inferno. A huge red cloud enveloped everything as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far, just forty or fifty yards ahead of the headlights. The roar of the flames was punctuated by explosions and the crackle of burning dry wood. I crossed the parking lot in the dark. At the last second, I dodged the abandoned wreck of a bloodstained Peugeot.
I finally found the exit, framed by two monstrous pieces of concrete, and then crossed through fifty yards of barbed wire fence. With a jolt that drew shouts of protest from all my passengers, we ran over a rotting corpse crawling with maggots that lay in the middle of the road.
We’d only been on the road for a mile or so when a huge explosion reverberated in the air, shaking our vehicle. The flames must’ve reached the oxygen tanks stored on the hospital grounds. The explosion was so violent I was sure it brought down half of the front wall. For the next fifteen minutes, we heard a series of explosions, one right after another, as flames devoured abandoned vehicles in the parking lot.
Finally, a massive explosion, considerably more powerful than the rest, made us jump out of our skin. It was either the fuel for the generators or the furnace. The flames had made it into the building.
Blessed Christ. We were on the road again, with no shelter, but with two more people. What next?
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Lucia and Sister Cecilia must’ve wondered where the hell we were going, but they refrained from asking. Maybe they were thinking that the first order of business was outrunning the fire. We’d decide our fate once we reached safety.
Nothing was further from reality.
Prit and I hadn’t forgotten the little metal part in the Cyrillic-covered package, stashed in the pocket of the Ukrainian’s backpack. That part was all that ensured that the helicopter would still be there, waiting for us.
The helicopter. A temporary solution to our problems. Prit and I had talked about it so often over those long, wonderful months. The forestry heliport where Pritchenko had parked his helicopter was less than eight miles as the crow flies from Meixoeiro Hospital. We’d plotted the best way to get there on a road map, combining the Ukrainian’s and my memories of the area. It was feasible to get there via secondary roads and abandoned firewalls that didn’t appear on maps. We wouldn’t be in much danger, since we’d be traveling through unpopulated areas. We’d planned to make a run to the helipad in October, when the rain would hide our movements from the undead, and then fly the helicopter to the hospital and fill it up with supplies. But that fucking fire had forced us to move up our plans.
In theory our plan didn’t seem too complicated, especially since the fire wasn’t moving in that direction. But a sudden shift in the wind could change all that. For now, we were driving in an area that seemed safe. Meanwhile the fire was devouring the huge hospital complex, reducing it to rubble that glowed in the distance as flames leaped out the windows on the upper floors. That fire was moving through the valley at an amazing speed. I could make out the backlit shapes of the buildings on the outskirts of Vigo. If the fire wasn’t stopped, it would devour the city, burning it to the ground in hours. And the only thing that would stop it was a heavy downpour.
The old world of mankind was definitely over. The new world, the world of the undead, the Cadaver World, had ta
ken its place, gradually destroying every trace of our presence on earth. I had a terrifying thought. We scattered survivors were the last of our race.
There weren’t any obstacles in our path until the last mile, where a landslide had blocked the road. We traveled the rest of the way along an old firebreak that ended near the boulder where I’m sitting now, writing this. From the top of the hill, about two thousand feet above sea level, we have a rare view of the entire Ria Vigo, part of the Ria Pontevedra, and several miles inland. There are no signs of life anywhere. Human life, that is.
The base was completely deserted and had been for several months, judging by the thick weeds growing up to the door. It took a good five minutes to hack our way to the fenced-off area.
ENTRY 86
Three Hours Later
To our relief, Prit’s helicopter was still at the base. It’s an enormous PZL W-3A Sokól with an elongated nose. Its body is painted red and white, its blades black and white. It rested on its oversize tires with all the doors open. On top of the cabin was a huge hump in which, Prit explained, were located the two monstrous turbines that drive the thing. The interior is spacious and wide. In addition to the pilot and copilot, it could fit ten people, although usually the fire brigades had only nine members, to give them more leg room.
Using a small tractor, we rolled the huge machine on to the tarmac. From where I’m sitting now, I can see Prit perched between the blades. He’s got the turbine housing open and is tuning up one of the motors. I’m glad the Ukrainian’s here. Not only has he proven to be a great companion, but thanks to him, we can get out of here.
The fire is now devouring the area north of Vigo. With high-powered binoculars, I’ve spent the last three hours scanning the horizon all the way to the city limits, about ten miles away. I can’t see many details through the thick black smoke. There are frequent explosions as the fire devours vehicles, service stations, gas pipes, and the thousands of flammable things in a city that size. I’m so glad I’m not there.
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