The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad

by Hasanov, Oleg

  Under the desk, Litvakov clenched his hands. He was suppressing his desire to lunge at this old scum and beat his ugly face to a messy pulp. He closed his eyes. He saw the images of Gerda and Misha in his mind and unclenched his fists. Over the years, his family made him weak.

  Litvakov raised his glance at the general. “What’s in it for you? If you can do it yourself, why would you torment us? You like to humiliate people, don’t you? Squash them like bugs under your boots. I know my conscience. I would drink myself to death in the comforts of my crappy new flat in Yekaterinburg.”

  “So it will be a no, then?”

  Litvakov shook his head. “I’m not a criminal.”

  “It’s all right,” the general said. “Fine with me. You don’t have to say anything right now. You will have some time while you’re under arrest.” He turned to his aide. “Call the guards.”

  The aide slid behind the door and called the guards. The huge guys came in and the general pointed at Litvakov. “Arrest the colonel and take him away. To the quarantine zone. Find his kids and put them there, too.”

  “They’re already there, Comrade General,” one of the guards said.

  “Good,” General Petrov said.

  Litvakov was handcuffed and taken away. The commandant sat, his head buried in his hands.

  ***

  It became quiet in the room. The aide didn’t take any notes or write the minutes of the meeting. He had been forbidden to do it. The general drew the drapes aside, opened the window and looked out. The weather was sunny. He squinted. Birds chirped in the trees.

  “What a glorious day!” he said, a smile dancing on his lips. “Spring is in the air. Can you feel it, Major?”

  Lesnov didn’t reply. He was still weeping, his face buried.

  The general said to his aide, “Andrei, will you step out for a sec? Ask somebody to arrange coffee for us. It’s damn chilly in this room.”

  The aide nodded and went out.

  The general turned to the commandant. “Will you come up here for a second, Boris Fyodorovich?”

  The man shuddered. It was the first time the general called him by his name. He got up slowly, unsure, and came up to the window.

  General Petrov stepped aside. “Take a look.”

  Lesnov saw a group of soldiers putting up a big tent in the school square. The chaplain was walking there, performing a ritual with his navicula.

  “This world is hardened in sin. This city as well. We have a chance now to start everything anew. Leave the world clean after us. For our children, our grandchildren. Do you have kids, Boris Fyodorovich?”

  Lesnov nodded. He took a handkerchief and wiped his tears off his face. “Yes. A son and a daughter. Two grandchildren, too. They all live in Kaliningrad.”

  The general said, “Kaliningrad is a nice city. Do you want to see them again? Perhaps in a couple of days? Help us to purge this place of sinners, and you’ll be able to see your family. Besides, if you’re willing to cooperate, all the charges of criminal negligence will be dropped.”

  Lesnov kept silent. Looking through the window. The tent was put up, and the soldiers began bringing religious paraphernalia into the ad hoc church—the altar stand, icons, the boxes with candles.

  “Help us build a better world, Boris Fyodorovich. Only one little tiny word. Yes or no?”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The torn and scattered pieces of furniture clearly showed that the ghouls had broken through the barricades in the left wing on the fourteenth floor.

  Andy took his walkie-talkie off his belt. “Ksenia, you have a breach in the left wing. Get out of there. Over.”

  Light static was the only reply.

  “Ksenia,” Andy said, pressing the button again. “The creatures have broken through. They’re coming your way. Over.”

  His walkie-talkie crackled, and he heard a voice but he didn’t catch what was being said. His battery must be going flat.

  Andy said into the radio. “You’re breaking up bad. We’re running out of juice here. Hold on there. We’re on our way. Andy out.”

  They went along the narrow corridor. Zhang Wei’s head swam, and he wanted to sit down. Viktor and Ivan picked him up by the armpits and elbows and moved on. The undead had left dirty and bloody trails behind them. Andy felt void building up inside him, draining him of courage and strength.

  There were four creatures in the hall. Two ex-guests and two ex-personnel. Chewing grisly morsels, blood dripping on the fine carpet. Marcel shot two of the reanimates and stepped back.

  “I’m out,” he said, lowering his gun. He looked like a kid who had run out of coins for game machines.

  A ghoul, an ex-waitress, was shambling toward them. It used to be a pretty girl. Now flaps of skin on its cheeks were dangling loose, and the right earlobe was torn away. Ivan pointed his gun and shot. He missed. He cursed himself as they had to make every shot count. He took a better aim and shot the monster in the eye. Another undead appeared behind the corner. Ivan heard light metallic clicks.

  “I’m out, too,” Ivan said. He ejected the magazine and put it in his pocket.

  “It’s tooth and nail now,” Andy said, tightening the grip on the rubber handle of his ax.

  An undead male customer approached him, and Andy had to demonstrate quite the opposite of hospitality. He swung the ax and buried it into the monster’s skull. There was a sound of crunching bones. Andy grunted, trying to pull the ax out. He couldn’t. It stuck.

  The fifth reanimated corpse, a floor concierge, walked toward them.

  The radio on Andy’s belt crackled, and for a moment he lost his focus. He let go of the ax and grabbed the radio. The creature toppled down and remained to lie motionless.

  Marcel stepped on the undead’s chest and yanked the ax out of its skull in two strong jerks. He used it to behead the attacking ghoul.

  The walkie-talkie was still alive, but Andy could only hear snippets of Ksenia’s message. “They got through … right wing … retreat …”

  Then the static ended, and the walkie-talkie fell silent.

  “Damn!” Andy shouted. He turned to the men. “Bad news. Let’s hurry up!”

  Marcel handed him his ax, and they hit the floor running. The next corridor was full of the creatures but it was wider, and they could dodge around them. Zhang Wei moaned while Ivan and Viktor kept dragging him. Outside, the sun was going down.

  They saw the broken defense at the end of the corridor. The pieces of furniture were turned upside down and scattered. The glass doors of the ballroom were shattered to smithereens. They rushed into the room.

  “Ksenia!” Andy shouted. “Alyona! Dr. Brodde!”

  Marcel ran around the ballroom looking into every tent and peeping under every table.

  “There’s no one here. They’ve left,” he said finally.

  Andy ran to the far end of the room and stopped. In the corner lay the corpse of a woman. It was the old cloakroom attendant. Bite marks were on her face and throat. Blood splattered on her chest like a bright red apron. The woman’s eyes fluttered and opened. They were crimson red like the evening dusk outside.

  Andy shuddered and lifted his ax. But then he remembered they had no more time to lose. He turned to the others.

  “Upstairs,” he yelled. “To the penthouse!”

  The walking dead kept on creeping through the breach. Slithering under the tables. Crawling over the piled chairs. Then they got up to full height, their arms raised, their hungry eyes focused on the prey ahead of them. The people dodged around them and sprinted to the stairwell.

  They ran up the stairs to the penthouse level. Andy looked carefully around the corner, ready to use his ax. It was dim in the corridor but not completely dark. A ghoul in a baseball cap was studying the elevator button panel. The shaft was open. Marcel ran past Andy and kicked the dead man in the butt without stopping. The creature disappeared in the darkness with a loud echoing moan and thumping sounds against the elevator shaft walls.

  Vikt
or, Ivan, and Zhang Wei were the last to go upstairs. The ghouls were at their heels, their crazed eyes locked on their targets. Viktor lost his footing and slipped and banged his knee against the steps. He shouted as an advancing ghoul reached up, grabbed the end of his shirt and climbed on top of him. Viktor tried to wriggle from him but the living cadaver pinned him to the steps and bit him in the neck. Dark blood colored his back. The man screamed and shook the biting corpse off. He touched the back of his neck and looked at his hand in horror. It was covered in blood. Warm blood trickled down his back under his shirt. Ivan turned around and helped him get up.

  Andy saw new dreadful monsters approaching. Ksenia, Dr. Brodde, Mimi, Ludmila, her little son Dima and Marina had huddled together near the locked door of his apartment. He put his hand in his pocket and came out with the bundle of keys.

  He tossed it to Ksenia. “The long one is for the upper lock!”

  He ran to help Ivan and Viktor carry Zhang Wei.

  Ksenia slipped the long key into the keyhole and turned. They all stumbled into the penthouse apartment, and Marcel kicked the door closed behind them. Outside, there was a cacophony of chilling howling sounds and thumping noises, muffled by the thick metallic door.

  Little Dima was crying, and Ludmila hugged him to calm him down. In a minute, the thumping noises subsided.

  Andy lit up the candles on the mantelpiece. The room looked brighter and safer now.

  Viktor sat wearily on the floor. He was panting. Ingvar’s eyes widened. He looked at Viktor and said, “Oh no, man. You’ve been bitten.”

  There was not much bleeding, it had practically stopped but everybody started inching away from the man.

  “You’re dangerous now,” Andy said to Viktor in Russian. “Infected. You know what it means.”

  Viktor looked up. “How much time do I have?”

  Dr. Brodde said, “Five to ten minutes. Fifteen, if you’re lucky. This disease spreads really fast.” The old German shook his head. “Mein Gott. Tut mir leid. I’m really sorry.”

  Ingvar looked in shock at Viktor’s blood-spattered clothes and said, his voice shaking. “I think he has to leave this place.”

  Viktor shook his head, not understanding what the Swede was trying to say.

  “Get away from my friend,” Ivan said. He looked around the spacious living room and saw the ravaged liquor cabinet. He fished out a bottle of wine and read the label. Masseto, Toscana. He whistled. He found two glass cups on the coffee table in the form of the Chinese Ying Yang symbol and uncorked the bottle. He slumped on the sofa beside the coffee table and poured the wine into the cups.

  “Come on, Vitya,” Ivan said to Viktor. “Let’s have a drink.”

  He downed the glass in one long gulp.

  On shaking legs, Viktor crossed the room and sat on the sofa near his friend.

  “Man, this is all so fucked up,” Viktor said, gulping down the wine.

  Ivan filled his cup again, looked at Dr. Brodde and turned to Viktor. “You want a priest, Vitya? Before you go?”

  “No,” Viktor said. “I’m not a Catholic. Actually, I’m not religious at all.”

  Andy looked at the man’s eyes. They were getting bloodshot. “Shit, man. You got it, all right.”

  “You positive it’s not the wine?”

  Nobody smiled at Viktor’s lame attempt to joke.

  Sweat broke on Viktor’s forehead. He pressed his palms to his temples. “God. I got a fever. I’m burning inside. Do you mind if I lie down?”

  Nobody minded, and he lay down.

  “It’s hot,” Viktor said. He took off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. “I think I’m going to open the window. A bit of fresh air won’t harm anyone, I guess.”

  He stepped to the window and opened it. A gust of cold air filled the room. He breathed in the cold evening air. The sun had almost gone down. There was a narrow strip of sun near the horizon.

  “God, you have quite a view here,” Viktor said and turned to Andy.

  Andy nodded.

  Without saying another word, Viktor put his right foot on the windowsill. The plastic thing cracked under his weight. He careened his body over it and threw out the window, flailing his hands. They heard a brief cry. Then snowflakes flew into the room, dancing in the air.

  Ivan walked slowly to the window and looked down. He saw a tiny black dot on the white pavement. In a few moments, it disappeared under dozens of other black dots.

  “Bye, friend,” he said, and closed the window.

  Ingvar stopped recording and put down his camera on the floor.

  “This is all wrong,” he said.

  “What is?” Ksenia said. She had heard the cry and come from the kitchen to see what was going on. Her eyes were filled with terror.

  “All this madness that’s around us,” Ingvar said. “Is it the end of the world, padre?”

  Dr. Brodde said, “In a way, it is. But it’s not God or the Devil who’s doing it.”

  “Who then?”

  The old German walked to the window. The sun had disappeared, and the city was submerged in total darkness now.

  “I distinguish two ways of explaining the nature around us,” he said. “The mythical way or I also call it poetical and the scientific one.”

  Ingvar said, “Can you be more specific, please?”

  “Ja, I could, if you please,” Dr. Brodde said. “But I’m afraid it’s not an appropriate moment, and it’ll take a long time.”

  Ivan sat on the sofa again and poured more wine into his cup. He invited Marcel, but the latter refused.

  “Well,” Ingvar said, “we’re not in a hurry, are we?”

  “All right,” Dr. Brodde said. “When the first people on Earth were afraid of everything that was around them, of nature, storms, and lightning, for example, there had to be someone who would dare to explain these phenomena to them. People usually have fear before unknown things. Enter the shamans who calmed them down, saying it was God hunting a mammoth in the skies or something like that. This is what I call the poetical or metaphorical explanation. It is what any religion is based upon. Then came the scientific way to explain the nature, because many people were not happy with the existing explanations, and it was science’s turn to calm them down. A scientist said that a lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs during a thunderstorm. The explanation suited everyone, and they went on raising their children and harvesting the crops. In terms of the metaphorical way, yes, it’s Armageddon. In scientific terms, it’s another Black Death plague, just much, much worse.”

  Ingvar said, “Doc, you sound more like a man of science than a priest. I never liked the Church. It is too boring for me.”

  “Too much poetry for you in the church?” Dr. Brodde chuckled.

  “Too much bullshit,” Ingvar said. “Pardon my French. But I would attend your sermons. It’s a pity we haven’t met before.”

  “It’s a strange chain of events, ja,” Dr. Brodde said. “But what we need to do to fight this plague is not a crucifix but a microscope.”

  Mimi sat near Zhang Wei. Her face was concerned. She touched his face, crying. The man spoke Chinese with his daughter, trying to soothe her.

  “What if he turns, too?” Alyona said.

  “He won’t,” Andy said. “He wasn’t bitten. He was injured by a desperate survivor.”

  Mimi turned to the old German and said, “Please, doctor, can you do something for my dad?”

  “We’re doing everything we can, honey,” Dr. Brodde said.

  They lay him down on the couch near the fireplace. Andy added more wood into the fireplace and started the fire. It was the last log.

  Mimi walked around the huge living room. She found the grand piano.

  She raised the lid and ran her fingers on the keys. “Oh, a Steinway. My dream.”

  She sat down on the stool and started playing “The Moon Sonata” by Beethoven. After a few notes, she frowned and stopped. “It’s a pity that the cold is killing the instrument
. And it seems no one has played it for a long time.”

  “No one has ever played it before,” Andy said. “You’re the first.”

  She thought for a second and put her hands gently on the keys again. She began playing “You’re Missing” by Bruce Springsteen. It was a short version without the lyrics. The monsters began groaning behind the door, being attracted to the sounds. As she finished, the people in the room applauded quietly.

  “Thanks,” Andy said. “One of my favorite songs by Bruce Springsteen. This one’s from his album “The Rising”. You like Springsteen, too?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know it was him,” Mimi said. “I never heard of him before. I just heard the song in the elevator.”

  ***

  After a scanty supper of what was left in Andy’s fridge, everyone was asleep except the host. Andy had broken a wooden chair to pieces and was now feeding them to the fire. They had brought couches and sofas into the living room, the only place in this building where it was relatively warm. Little Dima coughed in his sleep and woke Zhang Wei.

  The Chinese opened his eyes and sat up on his elbow. “Andy? You take care of Mimi if I die?”

  “You’re not going to die, Zhang.”

  “My name actuary Wei. Zhang my surname.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you Wei then. Your daughter is a talented musician.”

  “Yes. We came here for the international musical competition.” He paused and sighed. “Always wanted have a son. In China, all men want have a son. Girls bring misfortune home. Especiary blind girls. When Mimi born, I not even go to look at her. Went to the bar instead. We not afford another baby. In China, there’s a law. Actuary, you can have more children but it cost much money. I drank too much. Spent money on drinking. Men in my village laughed at me. I lost my face. When sober again, it was too late. My wife got depressed too, and … she killed herself. As Mimi was growing up, I saw my wife in her with every passing year. She is all I have now.”

  “You’re a fisherman, right?” Andy said. “Who taught Mimi to play the piano? She has a classic training.”

  “A retired music teacher in my village. She loved Mimi a lot. She taught her.”

  The broken chair cracked in the fire.