by L. D. King
“I was afraid of that,” said Zeyad. “All right, then. We will simply have to make enough room for everyone in the truck. If we take all of the gas cans out of the trailer, we can strap them onto the roof of the truck or on the back of it. That will open up a lot of room where we can put their things back there. If all we have to do is stack things a little higher on the trailer, that will be fine. We should have enough room for everyone inside the truck. It will be tight but we can make it work.”
After that, Sheref went on watch. Assem laid down to sleep, and Zeyad lay on his mat, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the cousin he had lost.
At first light, Assem, who was on the final turn of the night watch, woke everyone up. Then he went to the kitchen to set out their morning meal. After they had eaten, Zeyad leaned back in his chair. He tapped the table with his knuckles to get everyone’s attention.
He announced, “It pleases me to no end that I have found part of my family. With everything that has happened, this is no small blessing for me. I am sorry that my cousin was killed. Last night I talked with my two friends about what we are going to do. Before yesterday, our goal was to go to Cairo. We thought that with a larger military presence in Cairo, this zombie thing would be better there.”
He looked around at everyone at the table. “But seeing the number of people fleeing Cairo last night made us rethink where we will be going now.” He explained their plan to cross to the Siwa Oasis and then westward towards Morocco, looking for a place where they could all can live without fear of zombies.”
He smiled and continued, “I have come to realize that the five of you are part of my family. Because of this, we are asking you to come with us. If we let you go your own way, you will only drive to your death. Will you please accompany us to Morocco?”
“Zeyad, my husband has always talked about you with respect,” said Atef. “You have no obligation to me or my girls. You have no obligation to my sister or her daughter either. For the three of you men to so willingly accept us as your family… it is we who are honored to be with you. Our answer is yes! We will be pleased to join you all. May Allah be praised.”
“Thank you, Atef. I now make my pledge, in the presence of my friends, to protect you, your family, your sister and her daughter. I will not fail my pledge to you, ever.”
“Zeyad, I think we should think about staying here another day,” said Assem. “We need to repack the truck and trailer so we can make room for everyone. We need you to set everything that you want to take next to our truck. We will repack both the truck and the trailer to make room for all of us.”
During the rest of the day, they all helped repack the truck and trailer. That night they had dinner as a family. The next morning, after they ate, they loaded up in the Range Rover as they set out for Faiyum.
They drove off towards Morocco, on the run once again, driving their truck towards Africa.
They would run until they found safety or died trying.
Chapter 13
Moscow, Russia
ADZ +152d
It had been five months since the night that Boleslav Volkov, Ivan Konstaninov and Vyacheslav Orlov strolled out of the theater with their wives, Evdokiya, Tasha and Dunyasha. They had walked down the street to have a late coffee, never knowing that their lives would be changed forever. Ivan and Vyacheslav were savagely killed by zombies.
Four and a half months ago, their cars had run out of gas. At around the same time, the major power generating plants in Western Russia, as well as the ones in addition to the power plants in Central and Eastern Europe failed, knocking out all of the electrical power. One week following the failure of Central and Eastern Europe’s power grid Western Europe’s power grid failed. All of Europe, including Western Russia, was without electricity.
Now, months after incident after the theater, their security team of Sergei Utkin, Grigori Sokoloz, and Dmitry Kuznetsov was leading the way.
With them were the three custodians from the theater, Sofya Kozlov, Nataliya Alkaev, and Luka Petrov. This group of ten had been traveling together since the incident. Currently, they were in southwestern Poland. They were walking to the border with the Czech Republic, several days away by foot.
It was 11 AM on a rainy fall day. All ten of the group were cold, wet, and tired, as well as miserable. Adding to their suffering, they were hungry. Everyone was always hungry. Food was hard to come by at this time of year. The only ones openly complaining were the four survivors who had been among the elites of Russian society. They griped, grumbled and basically bitched about anything and everything with every step they took. They could care less who was listening. They wanted to made it clear that they were unhappy with everything around them.
It was too cold. It was too wet. It was too windy. They had to walk too far. They were hungry and tired. On and on they complained. Not once did a “Thank you for keeping us alive” come out of their mouths. The three custodians, on the other hand, were glad that they had been asked to join them as they trekked across Europe. They knew that to find a better place, without zombies, they all had to work to find it. If that meant they had to walk, then they were ready to do so happily. They had sympathy for the way the elite treated their security men. The bodyguards were leading the way through Poland.
Grigori half-whispered to the other two guards, “If this goes on any longer I might use my remaining ammunition to shoot them right here. We have worked for them for many years. In all of that time, I have never heard them complain as much as they are now. After all, we are taking care of them. The only thing we are not doing for them is carrying them on our backs.”
He shook his head. “They know how much food we have, but still they want more. We found clothing so they would be warm but they groused about the fact that the clothing was second hand, and had the nerve to tell us that the clothes were dirty. They did the same thing with the boots that we found for them. I am getting tired of this. Something needs to change before I decide to shoot them and walk away.”
“Grigori, I agree with you,” said Sergei. “Their mistreatment of us is getting old. I am a guard, not a slave. They act like they’re the only ones that are walking. We have all walked the same number of steps. In fact, we have walked further, if you add in the trips that we have taken to forage for food or clothes or whatever else we need. The custodians help us look for food as well. I know you are tired of them. I am as well. In my mind and under my breath, I have been calling them the Spoiled Russian Walkers. We are nothing but pawns in their game. I am nearly ready to let them try surviving on their own, without us. They will be alone, with no one to boss around. If something does not change soon, I am ready to leave them behind.”
“I knew you were both upset about them. I’m not too far from dumping them too,” said Dmitry. “Thinking of them as the SRW will help me get through the day. I will be using that label for them from now on. If they should overhear me and ask what it means, I’ll tell them that SRW stands for the Special Russian Wealthy.”
He let out a snort. “On another topic, we need to think about a place to stay for the night in the next two or three hours. If we can find some food, it would be nice to eat tonight, as well.”
“You are correct, Dmitry. There are a few houses on either side of this small road, up ahead. Why don’t we have the SRW stay on the road with one of us? The custodians can go with the other two to look for food. That should work for tonight. What do you think, Sergei? Do you think the SRW will agree to wait for us?”
“No matter what they want to do, Grigori, the SRW will have to do what we tell them if they want to eat tonight. I will take Luka with me. Dmitry, you can take the two girls with you. That way we can check the houses more quickly. I want to walk for another few hours before we find a place to hide. The zombies are not due to come out quite yet.” He looked at the houses ahead. “There are three houses on your side of the road and two on mine. Grigori will stay with the SRW on the road.”
As they came t
o the five houses, Grigori turned to everyone to announce their plan. “Okay, everyone. We have been discussing these houses ahead. We are going to take a short break from walking to look for food for tonight. Dmitry will take Nataliya and Sofya and search the houses on that side. Sergei will take Luka with him and search the two houses on that side. I will stay with you here on the road while we wait for them. Is that all right with you?”
“We can do that, Grigori,” said Boleslav. “While we were walking, we overheard a bit of your conversation. We could not hear everything that you said, but we did hear you mention the ‘SRW’ as you motioned back at us. Are you making a joke of us, Sergei?”
“No, Mr. Volkov,” Sergei said quickly. “We have been walking for a long time — nearly five months now. We still have a long way to go. We were just passing the time, talking; you know in Russia everything has initials? We thought of you. It would be an honor if we could refer to you as the Special Russian Wealthy or SRW for short. Would that be all right, sir?”
“I think, Sergei, that it would be nice to be referred to that way. It does have a feel of elitism to it. Thank you for thinking of us while the zombies are killing everyone around us. It is nice to still have a sense of humor.”
As they broke into their assigned groups, they headed towards the houses to search for food. Dmitry walked to the first house on his side of the road. The girls told him that to finish more quickly, they would go to the next house, rather than all three searching each house together. He thought What could it hurt?
He told the girls, “I’m all right with that, but don’t take any risks while you are inside. You know that anything can happen at any time. Be sure to leave yourself a safe path out in case of any trouble.”
“We will, Dmitry. We will be back out with food faster than you can blink.”
Dmitry went into the first house, while Sofya and Nataliya went into the second house. The door was locked, but they entered through a broken window.
Sergei was already into his first house with Luka right behind him. They were in the kitchen going through the cupboards, looking for food, when they heard a blood-curdling scream. Luka was the first one back out of his house, with Sergei close behind him. Dmitry was running out of the back door of his house. The screaming was coming from the house that the two girls were checking. As he was running to that house, Dmitry shouted, “Sofya, Nataliya! What is going on? Are you all right? Answer me dammit!”
Sergei and Luka came running from across the road, and Grigori was standing guard in front of the SRW. He shouted to Dmitry, “What is happening? Is that one of our girls screaming?”
“I don’t know who it is,” said Dmitry. “The girls wanted to search their own house. They are both inside that house.”
Dmitry kicked in the door of the house. Sergei was right behind him. Both men had wooden clubs in their hands, ready for battle. Luka hesitated next to Grigori in the middle of the road. Sergei was the first inside.
The men stopped in their tracks when they saw what was happening. There were four zombies inside of the house. They only heard one scream. Nataliya was on the floor, dead. Her head had been torn off her body. It had rolled towards the door that Dmitry had just kicked in. Nataliya’s head, eyes wide open, was lying on the floor blankly staring up at Sergei. Sergei had come to a screeching stop, looking at her head between his feet.
Though they were trained security guards, they were stunned. They stood there, mouths agape. Sofya screamed again, startling them. They both looked up in time to see Sofya’s eyes rolling up in her head as she died. Sergei turned and shoved Dmitry out the door, screaming, “Dmitry! Get out of the house now! We cannot help them — they’re dead! Move! Out of the house, Grigori! Get those people moving now!”
Grigori started moving the SRW back down the road that they had come from. Luka ran to the door that Dmitry was coming out of. Luka was outside, screaming, “Sofya! No! No! You must come out. I am here! I will help you. You cannot be hurt! We are getting married soon! No!”
Dmitry ran into Luka, knocking him on his ass. Dmitry grabbed Luka by his coat collar, dragging him towards the road. Luka wrestled away from Dmitry’s grasp and tried to run into the house. Sergei could not grab Luka fast enough; Luka ducked under Sergei’s arm and ran into the house. He saw Sofya being torn apart by two of the zombies kneeling on either side of her.
Luka ran to the nearest zombie, trying to pull it away from Sofya. The two zombies that were trying to follow Sergei out of the house turned on Luka. The first one raked its clawed hands down Luka’s back and ripped two long strips of flesh away, exposing his ribs. Luka turned to face his attacker, and it drew its claws across his stomach, slicing him open. Luka died on his feet as the contents of his belly spilled onto the floor. As he started to fall to the floor, the zombie kneeling next to Sofya reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling his body down, biting into the side of his head. It tore away his nose, his left eye and a portion of his left jaw and cheek down to the jugular vein. He died on his feet. He fell to the floor next to the love of his life. They died together, their blood mingling together.
Back on the street, the security guards were standing around the SRW’s in formation, ready to drive off any attacks. It was over as quickly as it began. The three custodians were dead in a flash, but for whatever reason, the zombies did not follow them out of the house. Grigori was the first to speak.
“I think the girls stumbled onto a place where the zombies hide until it is late enough to come out to hunt,” he said. “We have lost three of our friends. We need to learn from this. We cannot simply walk into a building or a house without first checking for zombies inside. This is what happens when we are tired or hungry. We must check the places that we go.”
He shook his head sadly. “I did not know that Luka was so close to Sofya. They were our friends, and I, for one, will miss them. But for now, we must make a decision as to where we are going to go for tonight. Back the way we came, or forward? It is about noon. We have another two or three hours of walking that we could do to be closer to our goal. What do you think?”
“We cannot stay here,” said Dmitry. “The zombies in that house will be coming out later. The way we came could just as well have zombies hiding, waiting for dark to hunt. They could be ahead of us, for that matter. This is not where I want to stay for the night, and I know that I hate to walk the same road twice.”
“Dmitry is right, Grigori. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to go back on a road that we walked already. I say we move forward until we find a safe place. It hurts me that we lost three good friends so quickly, but right now I want to be away from this place. Forward or back, I don’t care. Grigori, it is your choice.”
“All right, then, forward we go. The Czech border cannot be more than one or two days away.” Grigori led the group forward, away from the place where they had lost three of their friends.
Their ultimate goal was Mali, in Africa. To get there, they would have to go through Belarus, Poland, and the Czech Republic, then through Germany and down to Spain. From there, they would somehow find a way to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco. They believed that because Africa had fewer people, there should be fewer zombies, or none at all.
With their friends lying dead less than a kilometer behind them, Evdokiya spoke. Her voice had an agonizing screech when she was tired or complaining.
“Sergei, when are we going to stop? I’m hungry. I want to eat. I’m tired and my feet hurt. When are we going to stop?”
“Evdokiya, we need to go at least another five or six kilometers today. If we don’t keep up this pace, we will be walking in the winter. You know how much food we have with us. That is all we have until we find more. That was what we were doing when our friends were killed. They died trying to find us food.”
“The colder it gets, the harder it will be to find food. We need to be in France within a month, or six weeks at the most,” said Dmitry. “No more than that. That is about 850 kilometers
— a lot of walking. I am sure we will find safe houses along the way, and more food as well, but we have to do all this without being killed by the zombies. That is why we are pushing so hard. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes, Sergei. It’s just that some days it’s harder for me than others. Today is a hard day for me. I just want to stop, eat something warm, and lie down and sleep in a clean bed. Is that so wrong? Remember, you work for us. You are acting like we work for you.”
“Evdokiya, we did work for you, but we don’t any more. Now, because of the zombie outbreak, we are all equals. All of us are in the same crappy situation. We all have to fight to survive. If I, or Grigori, or Dmitry didn’t push you so hard, you’d be starving to death back in Russia, or dead, killed by the zombies or the little people of Russia who hated the elite. So, yes, we do appear to be the bosses. We are more experienced with this kind of thing than you. We are trying to keep you alive to give you a chance for a future somewhere else — hopefully a place with no zombies. Do you understand me?”
“Sergei, you don’t have to speak to me so harshly. We didn’t do this. It wasn’t our fault that they died back there. The difference is that the three of you have been trained for this, while we have always lived in luxury. We had people to do for us. We had the money to afford that sort of lifestyle. It’s difficult for us to change.”
“We will stop for tonight at the first safe building that we come to. We will eat the last of our food tonight. Then Grigori, Dmitry or I will stand watch tonight, as we have done every night. At first light, two of us will go out to search for food and whatever else we can find. We will try to bring back clothing or shoes or both to replace what is becoming worn out. Fair enough?”
Evdokiya and the others nodded.
“For too long, your little group of elites has done nothing but complain about the conditions we are in. It’s no one’s fault. This is the hand that we have been dealt. We can either learn how to survive, or we can lie down and wait to die, either at the hand of the zombies or from starvation. We’ve talked about this a number of times before. From now on, you are no longer in charge and we are no longer employees. We are all equals as members of this group. We will all carry bundles of supplies. There are only seven of us now. We all have to pull our own weight. Tomorrow we will start new. Tomorrow we will all be equals.”