The power stations, government run of course, no longer worked. This also meant that water wasn’t being distributed to homes properly. The state said this, too, was the fault of “capitalism.”
The opposition finally gained power in December 2015 but even then, Maduro used the Supreme Court to block all of the reforms they tried to use to repair the country. He blamed all the problems of our nation on the right wing and American spies. Around this time, there were over 2,000 protests in a four-month period.
The nation was in ruins and our leaders cried out for help from the world. It was the British Labour Party who came to the rescue. The British politicians, champagne socialists that they were, were made up of a lot of hard leftists, people who idolised Trotsky and Lenin, and most of all people who didn’t learn a damn thing from what happened to Venezuela. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Despite how many times socialism fails these idiots refuse to acknowledge reality. The most conservative estimates say that socialism killed 107 million people in the twentieth century. And still people think it just needs a few tweaks, a few minor corrections before it will become the perfect ruling system.
They said this while the defenders of freedom of speech rotted in Venezuelan prison cells being raped and interrogated.
From my own point of view, I remember queuing up at the grocery store at four in the morning only to be told at three in the afternoon that they wouldn’t be opening that day. That sparked a riot, with people attacking the store and trying to break in to the delivery trucks they had out back. From that time on soldiers escorted the food delivery trucks. Everything was in short supply, including important medicines, clean water and food. We didn’t care what was said from Miraflores (the presidential palace) we just wanted enough to eat.
My husband’s brother worked as a motorcycle taxi driver. Each time he went to work he took his life in his own hands. Before accepting any passenger, he would scrutinise them carefully, checking to see if they had a firearm stashed in their waistband. Not making that check had cost the lives of many of his friends.
The police and security forces were good for little other than arresting people who opposed the government. These were often students and ordinary people, who our government labelled “fascists” and “racists.” All for exercising their right of Free Speech. The majority of our citizens were dark skinned yet somehow we were “racist” for opposing the government. Racist. The first time that word was ever used was by Trotsky in 1930 when he wrote his book 'A History of the Russian Revolution'. At that time the Soviet Communists planned to take over the world (the outbreak of World War II interrupted this) however it was recognised that the Western countries would reject Communism, after the smoking cess pit that Russia had been reduced to buy it, so Trotsky’s idea was “thought crime” and “wrong think,” a means of silencing anyone who opposed the State’s views. The Soviet Communists then set about infiltrating Western academia and politics with as much Communist thought and propaganda as they could, spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on this. As diabolical as Communism and Socialism are I wonder if Trotsky’s invention of thought crime is somehow worse, because it stops the intelligent people from being able to speak out about what they can see coming down the road.
With a corrupt and ineffectual police force this led to mob rule and street justice. A few streets from my home a man stole a motorcycle at knife point. The owner backed away and began shouting. The whole street came alive, people rushing out their homes with wooden bats with nails driven in them and metal pipes. They quickly overwhelmed the thief, beating him savagely in the road. Then they doused him in petrol and burned him alive. His burned remains were left in the street. That type of scene played out daily across the country. Also hangings were very common for anyone who stole or otherwise broke the law. I never participated in anything like that. I forbade my husband to either.
My husband’s name was Yosue. He was a quiet man, working as a counsellor. So many people were angry and just fed up with everything so my husband offered free counselling to a lot of those people who just couldn’t afford it. He told me that most of the problems he saw were as a result of our nation’s economic problems.
What I should make clear as well is that in socialist countries the people who are well connected to the government live comfortable and extravagant lives behind high walls, drinking champagne and eating lobster, partying on yachts and going to exclusive restaurants. Meanwhile the majority of the population is reduced to hunting pigeons, cats and dogs merely to have enough food to survive and would murder each other for a tin of food.
When we heard reports of the dead starting to rise we couldn’t believe it. We thought it was another government distraction, because by then no one trusted the government, we had learned all the way to our bones that the government is not our friend. It wasn’t until we saw this with our own eyes that we finally understood. A person who had been lynched in the street minutes before for looting would be swinging wildly and clawing at their rope, making those horrible rasping sounds that the undead do. An old woman who had died of malnutrition would now be a zombie, attacking people in the street.
I had a nightmare, the same one every night. In it Yosue and me were trying to get through our front door, we were pushing against it together but some heavy weight was blocking it. Finally it gave way and we stumbled inside to find lots of leper-like people asleep all over the floor of our living room. As soon as I saw these people I was filled with a sense of impending dread, somehow knowing that if they woke up and saw us it would be the most terrible thing. In my dream Yosue grabbed my hand and we fled through our home towards the kitchen as the ghouls began to wake up. In real life Yosue counselled me about my nightmares but they have never gone away.
The arrival of the undead led to more riots, more protests. We felt for sure, finally, the government would do something to help us. Surely they could see that if they did nothing there wouldn’t be a country left to rule over? The dead were swiftly gaining numbers across the nation. My husband was prescient enough to realise this problem wasn’t going to go away, in fact it was going to end very badly.
We gathered what supplies we could, a few satchels of items we thought would be useful on the road, as well as a few items of personal value. I thought then that Yosue was so smart, that we were thinking ahead of everyone else, but when we made it to the border it seemed that hundreds of thousands of people had had the same idea.
All these people were crowded together, standing there with suitcases overflowing with clothes, children clutching homemade teddy bears assembled from rags. Some people were even carrying electrical appliances which had been useless for a long time now due to the power shortages but maybe they figured they could sell them once they left the country.
Defending the border was a line of soldiers with tanks and armoured cars. My first thought was that they were going to conduct some kind of screening, that they wouldn’t let us through before making at least a cursory inspection of each person to make sure there weren’t infected people leaving the country. But no, a soldier who seemed to be in charge took up a bullhorn, I later found out he was a Captain, he shouted, “Go home! No one will be leaving! There is no escape from our socialist paradise!”
The people had been bearing food shortages for years, they were victimised by the police and gangs, they were sick of being so badly mistreated by their own government, and most of all they were sick of being lied to, sick of being told that Venezuela was a utopia when everyone could clearly see it wasn’t. I think that’s what started the riot, the Captain’s words being the finally straw, with the people in the front screaming and running for the soldiers. They were followed by a wave of people right behind them.
The Captain gave the order to fire and the bullets mercilessly cut us down. At first they only fired rubber bullets but then some people actually got to grips with a few soldiers and pulled them into the crowd, beating them to the ground. I couldn’t see what happened
to those soldiers after that. I don’t imagine it ended well for them. The Captain then gave the order for real ammunition to be deployed against us.
Soon after they began using tear gas and eventually mortar rounds. The crowd began to flee, many people were crushed in the panic. By this time the people who had died were beginning to stir back to life as ghouls, indiscriminately attacking anyone they could get a grip on. With so many frightened people so close together the dead didn’t have far to search.
The air was thick with smoke and I could see that the soldiers had begun sweeping flamethrowers across the crowd, their own people. My neighbour, Onelia, who I used to trade recipes with, was covered in the flames pouring over her like a liquid and she seemed to be looking right at me as she screamed and her eyes melted. I tripped and fell in the road and I remember thinking at the time I was done for. My husband helped me to my feet while he was pushed and jostled by the crowd. He was so calm in the middle of that chaos, making sure I was okay. I remember that strengthened me and made me feel that just maybe we were going to get through this, maybe we were going to be okay after all.
I got to my feet and managed to smile at my husband. It was then I saw half his head was missing. I don’t know if it was a stray round or if the soldiers aimed deliberately but he had been given a fatal injury. His last act was to meet my horrified gaze with his one remaining eye. I screamed and my husband collapsed in the street face down. I lost it then, all the reserves of strength I had, all the hope, vanished. I was hysterical.
I was swept along in the crowd, somehow managing to stay on my feet. We were being herded back where we came from, back home, both by the soldiers who were shooting at us and also by the undead who were hot on our heels.
All the while I heard the captain calling out on his bullhorn, over the noise and explosions, “There is no escape from our socialist utopia!”
A month later a huge crowd of civilians broke through the border and we were finally free. I don’t know where these people thought they were going -Trump had made it clear that America was not going to be a refugee centre for the rest of the world.
You know, before the War and before things got really bad here Yosue and me used to go and visit a bookshop every weekend. My husband and me used to sit in a bookshop drinking coffee together and just reading peacefully for a while, then we would always share with the other one what we had read about, some exciting facts, some insight into another culture or country. When I think about my husband, and I think about him every day, that’s what I remember, the good times and the days we can never go back to.
MIAMI, FLORIDA
‘THE WALL OF LIBERTY’
Interviewer: Susanne L. Lambdin
INTERVIEW 20:
The surf on Miami Beach rolls in where a twelve-mile long barbed wire fence, attached to cement blocks, adds to the military presence. Every fifty feet stands a thirty-foot tall guard tower and Marines patrol the area, keeping civilians back from the water, though they want to be in the sunshine. All except the beach in Miami is surrounded by a fifty-foot wall called ‘The Wall of Liberty,’ built in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force.
The nearby Naval base and Cape Canaveral are defended by soldiers. Ever since the War broke out the virus that caused millions of deaths has caused people to become truly terrified and superstitious. One of the more bizarre rumours is that the soldiers defending the Wall are made up of both humans and vampires who are serving together as part of a treaty. I have the privilege of interviewing Captain Kirkpatrick of the Moonbeam.
Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Captain Kirkpatrick. You’re a hard man to track down. I was told the Navy was keeping you under close tabs, and as of yet, no one has heard your side of the story . . . not the real version.
You assume there is another version than what the U.S. Navy released.
[The captain is in his fifties, white haired, and he’s nervous. His hands shake so hard that he has to hold them against his chest. Whatever happened on the beach still haunts him. He should probably be in a psych ward, and maybe that’s where he’s destined to go, as the Marines are watching us and they hamper his willingness to talk to me.]
Isn’t there always another version, Captain Kirkpatrick? Zombies attacked your yacht and killed everyone but you. I have no doubt you were told to keep your mouth shut, but I don’t want the official story. I want your story - the real story.
I’m not supposed to talk about that. You know the psychiatrist here diagnosed me as being completely crazy, don’t you? He said I’m a ‘paranoid schizophrenic,’ I suffer hallucinations, I worry excessively about persecution. [Sighs.] The only slight bit of comfort I have is knowing that the Liberty Wall is around me. Maybe . . . just maybe.
The Liberty Wall stands there for a reason. This place is under such tight security, that I didn’t think I would be allowed to interview you, Captain Kirkpatrick. Frankly, I’d like to hear what happened during the initial stage of the infection. Where was the Moonbeam, were you the captain then, and did you have a full crew?
The Moonbeam was a five million dollars luxury yacht owned by Tom Peters, an oilman out of Texas, and he hired me. I served in the U.S. Navy for twenty years, retired, and found my pension wasn’t enough to pay my bill. When Tom offered me the position, he said I could hire my own crew, and that’s what I did. He and his wife, Lana, wanted to cruise the Caribbean Islands, so we left Miami in August with a few of their friends and a full crew of twenty, which included a cook, a maintenance team of three, and five servers. My first mate was a former Navy man like myself. Lt. Travers was only twenty-five, but he was from Florida and had sailed the seven seas with his old man before he joined the Navy. We both had matching tattoos on our right arms. Hell, every time we stopped in port, we both got another tattoo and it sorta turned into a ‘rite of passage’ between us.
Tom and his wife wanted to show their friends every island, as they’d been there many times in the past, so we cruised by Cuba and then Haiti, which I always try to avoid since it’s a bit depressing. We finally reached St. Martin, which is split down the middle, with the northern portion governed by the French and the rich south end by the Dutch. So, Tom decided to stay put for a day or two, and I stayed on board with the crew, while he and his wife took three other couples into Phillipsburg, that’s on the Dutch side, to see the sights.
It was late before I started to get worried about them. Travers had gone into town and returned with pizzas, but he was clearly shaken up during dinner, and finally told me in private that the hospital was filled with folks who had come down with the flu. I didn’t find that troublesome until another yacht captain took a dingy out to tell us all three cruise ships at anchor in Phillipsburg where under strict quarantine. Their crews and passengers were still on board, and now and then across the water, you could hear screams or gunfire. Then, my helmsman, Michael, reported fire on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, and we saw smoke billowing out from the windows on five decks and people were jumping into the water. I decided we needed to leave before the Dutch Coast Guard blocked the harbor. As we prepared to weigh anchor, Tom, his wife, Pat, and three of his friends returned minus their spouses. They came out on a rowboat, of all things, straining at the oars, and I could see Mrs. Peters was covered with blood. As soon as we got them on board, Tom advised us the women were attacked by a mob of violent people in the town of Marigot, on the French side, and his wife was bitten. Bitten! It took a moment to register, but she looked pale. The bite on her arm was already festered and oozing black blood, and Travers said she was infected.
As we headed out of the harbor, my crew noticed people in the water but Tom refused to let us help anyone – he was hysterical, and so were his three friends. Tom had a second key to the armory, he’d given guns to his friends, and before I realized what they were doing, I heard gunfire. On the bridge, I had no way to stop them. Plus, I had to steer us out to open sea, and other captains were doing the same damn thing. We had jus
t cleared the point when Mrs. Peters came stumbling into the bridge and attacked my navigator. She bit a chunk right out of Bob’s face, so Travers pushed her outside and over the railing. I’m sorry to say that her husband was relieved, since he intended to come back and shoot her before she turned into one of those . . . one of those things!
You mean a zombie.
Yeah, a zombie, a slow-moving one, not those superfast freaks . . . that was later . . . Hell, the chatter on the radio was the same, and every captain reported infected people on land and at sea. We spotted a few yachts on fire, but didn’t stop, and I decided to try to make it to one of the smaller islands in the Virgin Islands, since it’s U.S. territory and I figured our Navy would be in control of the outbreak. However, that wasn’t the case. It was no better there and captains with the same idea could barely handle their crews who raided other ships, killed their crews and stole their supplies. It was like the ‘Lord of the Flies,’ only these were adults killing people, and they weren’t infected. I guess you could call them ‘pirates,’ since that’s what we encountered every time we tried to reach land to stop for fuel.
One of Tom’s friends came down with the flu a few days later, sweating, bleeding from his eyes, ears and mouth, and since no one wanted to shoot him, we tossed the man overboard the moment he turned into a zombie. We had to do it with several of the crew, but by then, Travers and Michael had the guts to shoot the infected in the head. Every time we encountered a hostile ship, we’d either out run them or be forced to fight to survive. We lost Tom and his other two friends in a battle, and decided to start taking on folks we found adrift in small boats. I soon had eighteen women and twelve men on board, including ten of my own crew to put us at thirty-one souls. It was crowded, but we fished when we ran out of food, and when we needed gas, we usually took it from other yachts left to drift at sea.
Zombie War: Interviews From The Frontline Page 15