I set Lucullus in his carrier. I envied the way that orange ball of fur could fall asleep, oblivious to the roar of the engines. How the hell could he stand it? Even muffled by our helmets, the noise was driving me crazy after five days straight. Cats can adapt to anything, I guess.
I peered behind me into the passenger cabin. Sister Cecilia was belted in tight, praying in a monotone voice as she slowly fingered her rosary. In her spotless habit and huge red helmet, the little nun was quite a sight, marred only by her slightly green face and her worried look every time the helicopter hit some turbulence. Flying didn’t sit well with the nun, but she’d been stoic, not complaining once.
Lucia was sound asleep, stretched out in the front seat, a vision even in frayed shorts and a tight, oil-stained T-shirt (she’d gotten dirty helping Prit at our last stop). I brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, trying not to wake her.
I sighed. My feelings for that girl created a big problem and I didn’t know how to resolve it. Over the last five days, Lucia and I had been stuck together like glue. I couldn’t deny that I was deeply attracted to her olive skin, long legs, her curves, and cat eyes, but I was trying to keep my cool. For starters, it wasn’t the time or place for an affair. And then there was the age difference. She was a seventeen-year-old kid and I was a thirty-year-old man. A thirteen-year difference was no small thing.
Lucia moved in her sleep and muttered something I couldn’t make out. The look of pleasure on her face made me swallow. I needed some air.
I inched down the narrow corridor connecting the cargo bay with the cockpit and dropped into the seat beside Pritchenko. The Ukrainian turned, flashed a big smile, and handed me his thermos. I took the thermos and knocked back a long drink. Tears filled my eyes and I coughed, trying to catch my breath. That coffee was about fifty percent vodka.
“Coffee with a kick.” The Ukrainian snatched the thermos out of my hands and chugged half its contents. He didn’t even blink. Then he pounded on his chest and belched loudly. “Much better for flying.” He passed the thermos back to me. “Yes sir. Much better.” He smacked his lips, satisfied. A big smile spread across his face. “In Chechnya, my squadron drank our vodka straight… but it was colder there,” he said with a laugh.
I shook my head. Prit was a lost cause. Inside the hot cockpit, the Ukrainian was shirtless, drenched with sweat. He was wearing worn fatigues, a huge black cowboy hat he’d found in a bar, and green mirrored sunglasses. His imposing mustache was the only part of his face I could actually see. He reminded me of a character in Apocalypse Now.
There was no doubt that Prit was an impressive pilot. In Vigo, he managed to get that chopper into the air, even though it was loaded down with tons of fuel in its tank and several more in drums hanging under its belly.
Images of that trip played over and over in my mind. Every day, we grasped the true scope of the Apocalypse. And what we saw convinced us that human civilization had gone to hell.
The first few hours were the worst. As we’d headed south along the coast of Portugal just a few hundred feet in the air, we gazed slack-jawed at the widespread chaos and desolation.
The light caught our attention first. The air was unusually clear, almost transparent since factories had been closed for months and no cars were polluting it. If it weren’t for the smell of rotting flesh and trash all around, you’d have thought you were in an untouched wilderness from five thousand years ago. One look at the stiffs walking around everywhere shattered that illusion.
The highways were completely impassable. The twisted remains of cars dotted the pavement every few miles, and monstrous pileups often blocked the road entirely. We even saw a couple of collapsed viaducts and highways completely covered by landslides. An especially steep stretch of the highway that linked Oporto to Lisbon had become a wild, raging stream several miles long. Water from a broken dam flowed freely, creating little peaks of foam as it careened against reefs made from the remains of cars.
Nature was slowly reclaiming her terrain. Proud human constructions, wondrous feats of engineering, were slowly being devoured by weeds, water, earth, and whatever else God put in their way.
A crackling in the helmet’s intercom yanked me out of my daydream and back to the Sahara. The fucking radio had decided to work again.
“The fuel tank is almost empty.” Prit’s voice sounded metallic in my ears. “I’m going to take a pass over this area. Look for a good place to land.”
And keep your eyes open, I told myself. We don’t want any more fucking problems, not when we’re so close.
The other pit stops had gone reasonably well, but we couldn’t be too careful. I had to remember what happened the day before.
2
In a God-forsaken place between Portugal and Extremadura, a desolate region in western Spain, Prit landed the helicopter in a parking lot next to a roadside diner. The entire expanse of cement was empty except for a rusty Volkswagen SUV and a Fiat hatchback with four flat tires. The restaurant looked abandoned and lonely, its neon sign covered by a year’s worth of dust.
As it landed, the Sokol kicked up a huge cloud of dust and sand. Before it could settle, Prit and I jumped out of the chopper, pistols in hand, our hearts in our throats, peering desperately through that ragged cloud for Undead staggering around the area.
After we made sure the parking lot was deserted, my heart quit racing. When the Sokol’s engines were turned off, a deathly silence spread over the parking lot. There wasn’t a single sound, not even birds chirping. The roar of the helicopter must’ve frightened them all off. Or maybe there were no fucking birds left in the area.
For a moment, I got the uneasy feeling we were the last people left on the face of the earth. Just then Lucullus got spooked and let out a strange meow that woke me out of my trance.
Pritchenko and Lucia ran over to the helicopter’s transport net, unhooked it, and folded it back, revealing the yellow drums filled with jet fuel. Pushing aside the empties, the Ukrainian rolled a full drum up to the helicopter. With a flick of his wrist, he popped the cap open and inserted a rubber hose, connected the other end to the Sokol’s tank, and let the fuel flow into the bird.
During the few minutes it took to fill the tank, we were extremely vulnerable. With the chopper on the ground, its cargo net open and highly flammable liquid pumping into its tank, a fast takeoff was out of the question. If any Undead had showed up, we’d have been screwed.
After making sure nothing was moving in the area, I motioned to Prit that I was going to grab a cigarette. All I found while scrounging around in the cabin were a couple of squashed, damp Camels. That pissed me off. We’d taken plenty of supplies and medicine from the hospital, but we were running really low on smokes.
I gazed over at the restaurant at the far end of the parking lot: dubious. It was a dive, but I’d have bet a million euros there was a cigarette machine by the door. The place looked deserted, so I decided to check it out.
Before I headed for the restaurant, I turned to tell everyone I was going. Prit and Lucia had their backs to me and were in a heated debate about how to stack the empty drums in the net. Sister Cecilia was taking a quick nap, glad for a break from those terrifying heights and to be back on terra firma. Lucullus was indifferent to me, as he groomed himself, oblivious to the world. I shrugged. I’d only be gone a minute.
The door was locked, so I looked around for another way in. Flower pots filled with wilted plants were lined up in front. A sun-bleached sign for ice cream lay on the ground next to a tattered umbrella, a dust-encrusted table, and a couple of plastic chairs. Tossed in the far corner, collecting dirt, was a denim jacket so faded its color was unrecognizable.
The door wouldn’t budge. I had better luck with one of the old wood-frame windows that opened into the kitchen. The passage of time and the heat generated by the grill had warped it, leaving it open a few inches at the top. I drew out my knife and stuck the blade in the gap to jimmy it open. After a minute or two, the latch broke with
a dull crack. The window rose silently, leaving enough room for me to climb into the cool, shady interior.
I stealthily made my way into the kitchen, peering into the darkness. The change from bright light to shadows left me blinded for a few seconds. To make matters worse, the rotten smell took my breath away. I covered my nose with my sleeve. My eyes teared up and bile rose in my throat.
As I got accustomed to the half-light, I could make out details in the kitchen. The smell was coming from a huge, industrial freezer standing wide open. Hundreds of pounds of pork and beef had been rotting in there for months. On the counter, thousands of maggots swarmed over what had once been pork ribs and were even crawling on the handle of the knife lying beside the meat. Next to that, a pile of rotten tomatoes waited for someone to slice them for a salad that would never be served. On the stove was a scorched pan; the smoke it gave off as it burned had left a large ring on the ceiling. The gas jet remained open, but the gas had long since run out. It was a miracle the place hadn’t burned to the ground.
Judging from the scene, the folks in that greasy spoon had fled in panic, not stopping to do the most basic things. I knew exactly what had frightened them so much.
I eased the kitchen door open. A dozen tables covered with rotting food were arranged around the dining room. It looked like a still life in chiaroscuro some great artist had painted. A purse hung from the back of a chair, abandoned by its owner as she fled.
I looked around the charmless room till I spotted a cigarette vending machine next to the bar. A calendar, forever open to February, was stuck to the mirror, surrounded by bottles of cognac, photos of Real Madrid and team flags. I slipped behind the bar and rummaged through drawers crammed with receipts till I found a bunch of keys. I smiled, pleased to find that one of those keys opened the cigarette machine.
From outside came the muffled sound of metal cans clanking together, signaling that Prit and Lucia were closing up the cargo net and were ready to take off. I panicked as I pictured them taking off without me, leaving me in that dirty, forgotten corner, far from the hand of God. That was a ridiculous idea, completely unfounded, but to a mind with so little rest, it seemed plausible. I rushed around, stuffing as many packs as I could into my backpack, spilling cigarettes onto the floor. I even grabbed the cheap brands. Who knew where I’d find the next supply?
I was about to leave when I decided I’d better finally answer the call of nature. After flying for seven hours without a break, my bladder was about to explode. Prit bragged that he could piss into a bottle as he was flying. No doubt he could, but the idea of peeing in front of a nun and a seventeen-year-old hottie just didn’t sit well with me, so I’d held it. Until then.
I slung my rifle across my back and unzipped my pants on the way to the john to save time. As I stood at the urinal, I felt a huge sense of relief.
Just as I was zipping up, I saw a hand reflected in the chrome urinal. Behind that hand, an arm, then the rest of the woman. She was enormous, around two hundred pounds. What was left of her curly hair was in fat ringlets. Someone—or something—had eaten half her face and ripped her arms out of their sockets. I spotted a half-devoured arm lying in a pool of dried blood on the bathroom floor. The arm I’d seen coming through the door was attached to her shoulder by just a couple of tendons; it swayed wildly as she lurched from side to side.
Before I could turn around, the monster jumped on me and flattened me against the wall. I felt her breath on my neck and heard her teeth clanking against the barrel of the rifle on my back. Fortunately she didn’t have any arms, otherwise she’d have stopped me cold. I fought off her first onslaught, but the situation was still dire. Bracing my hands on the wall, I pushed back but the thing’s teeth had a firm grip on my rifle. Just then, my feet slipped out from under me.
We hit the ground and rolled. I wriggled free of her dead weight and started crawling to the door. I watched in horror as she ferociously chomped down on one of my boots. With my other foot, I flailed around wildly, kicking her in the gaping red hole that had once been her face.
I didn’t want to die. Not there in the filthy bathroom of that God-forsaken roadhouse, dragging myself along the ground with my pants unzipped.
With both hands I grabbed one of the spears I always carried in the sheath strapped to my leg (my spear gun was back in the helicopter). I raised it over my head and plunged it into the center of that creature’s skull. With a soft squish, the spear’s steel tip slid into her head till it reached bone, where it stuck.
Holy Christ! The whole thing was over in a flash—fifteen seconds, tops.
I inched up the wall and got to my feet, never taking my eyes off that Undead thing. As always after a fight like that, my stomach was in knots, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I tried to light a cigarette, but my hands were trembling so much, I couldn’t flick the wheel of the lighter, so I gave up.
I staggered out of the bathroom, with the bitter taste of vomit in my mouth, feeling the adrenaline coursing through me. I’d never get used to killing one of those creatures. I felt sick every time, even though I knew they weren’t alive. Every time my life was in danger, terror paralyzed me. And every night, for so many months, horrible nightmares were my bed companions.
I wasn’t the only one. Lucia tossed and turned at night, fleeing the nightmares that hounded her. Prit would wake up suddenly with a crazed look in his eyes. He’d stare blankly into space for hours, then knock back the better part of a bottle of vodka. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I must’ve had the same expression on my face. No one had gotten more than five hours of sleep for months.
I finally managed to light a cigarette and bolted out the door. I squinted in the sunlight, disoriented for a moment. I turned toward the Sokol, whose huge blades were slowly tracing large circles in the air. From the copilot window, Lucia was scrutinizing me, as Pritchenko checked all the fluids before taking off.
I dragged my feet through the dust as I walked back to the helicopter. Lucia watched me with a piercing gaze. She must’ve guessed what had happened. I was exhausted and emotionally drained. That little episode was a summary of what my life had become—a nightmare that never let up.
3
“Come in! Dabai! Dabai! Do you read me?” Prit’s voice rang out over the intercom amid crackles and pops. I was so lost in thought I hadn’t heard him. I shook my head to push the nightmares out of my mind and focused on the Sokol as it shot like an arrow across the Sahara.
“Talk to me, Prit!” I yelled into the microphone over the howl of the engines, as the helicopter traced a wide spiral above the ground.
“That might be a good place to land.”
I looked where he was pointing. We were flying over a miserable little town that clung to the Atlantic shore, where the sands of the Sahara sank under the cold ocean. There were about twenty houses and a whitewashed mosque ringed by fields of stunted crops. Half a dozen long, sun-bleached fishing boats rested on the beach. A dusty road ran north and south through town and disappeared in the distance.
At the southern end of the town was a large open space, about five hundred feet from the nearest houses, surrounded by a dilapidated wood fence and thorny bushes. Probably a goat pen once, but there was no sign of any goats. A perfect place to land.
With a long, graceful pirouette, Prit brought the chopper down, until we were hovering about twenty feet above the goat pen. The fuel drums clanked against each other as the cargo net settled on the ground. With a light flick of the controls, the Ukrainian landed the helicopter alongside the net. In just a few seconds, the Sokol was back on land, kicking up a sandstorm and blowing down the wood fence.
When the sand settled, we calmly scoped out the space around us. The silence was broken only by the wind filtering between the adobe houses. Instantly, we felt the sweltering heat. It must’ve been over 110 degrees. The air was dense, thick like hot soup; just drawing a breath was an effort. Even in the best of times, that bleak town at the barren edge of the desert w
ouldn’t have been a pleasant place to live. Now uninhabited and in ruins, it looked ominous.
On high alert, Prit and I ventured out of the enclosure to take a look around and stretch our legs after hours and hours of flying. The town’s main road was in horrible shape; huge potholes had swallowed up chunks of pavement and were then covered over with sand. No one had set foot on it in months.
We headed into town cautiously, picking our way down the middle of the road. That town was very close to where the Polisario Liberation Front had fought to end to Spanish colonial rule in northern Africa. Many of the roadside ditches in the area were strewn with land mines set by the Polisario or the Moroccan army. Getting blown to bits by a land mine so close to the Canary Islands would’ve really sucked.
One of the first houses we came to had a strong smell, like spoiled milk. It wasn’t the usual smell of rotting flesh. The softer, sour, even spicy smell confused us.
With a nod, we quietly cocked our rifles. We took a deep breath and darted around the corner, aiming wildly in every direction.
The Ukrainian looked completely bewildered. “What the hell is that?”
“No fucking idea, Prit.” I lowered my gun and scratched my head. “I’m just glad I wasn’t here when it happened.”
Stretched on the ground at the end of the narrow alley in front of us were about two dozen bodies that looked like so many others we’d seen. The difference was these bodies hadn’t decomposed. The scorching heat and the extremely dry desert air had mummified them. Their tattered clothing barely covered their skeletal limbs that the sun had scorched a dark mahogany. What skin remained was stretched as tight as a drum.
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