Last Words

by Jackson Lear

  Part 2.

  We are … somewhere. We stopped to barter for food and water. The people here didn’t want clothes. We tried to pay them in euro but that’s not what they use here. Ediz tried to pray with them to encourage them to help the less fortunate. Most people ignored us. We can’t rob these people. We were able to refill our water bottles but that was it.

  When I mentioned that it might take us eight days to get to Sicily I was overly optimistic. Since we need to stop every day to refuel as well as sleep it will take us ten days at best. Realistically? Double that.

  Part 3.

  We had to stop again. It’s just after dusk now. Cristina was able to get us a loaf of bread. She let an old man squeeze her boobs in exchange for bread. She said she didn’t care. It did draw some attention and other people were priming themselves to have a go. They wanted to see her boobs and they tried to get her to take her shirt off but she refused. All that for a loaf of bread. I can’t believe how blasé she seemed about it. We have one and a half slices each for breakfast and then we’ll be out of food again.

  8 September

  So here’s the thing about diesel engines. You can’t let them run out of diesel. Ever. If you do you have to pull the engine apart and bring it back to life by using a workshop’s worth of tools. If you’re like us, out on the high seas without any diesel in sight, without a single wrench, then you’re engine is completely fucked and won’t be starting up again.

  So we’re walking. Through Africa. On zero energy. Farewell, Phil. Let’s see if we can get to Sicily any faster on foot.

  I keep thinking of those distances. If by some quirk of fate we find ourselves in Tunisia with another boat, ready to sail directly to Sicily, it will still take us twenty days to walk from here to there. Twenty days under an African sun with no food, no water, no money, and nothing but an ass load of misery to motivate us.

  I also keep thinking that these zombies are likely to double in number every day. Some will die or be killed by neighbours, police or soldiers, but enough will make it. We’ve been out of Spain for, what, five days now? There were almost 18,000 of them on that day. There could be a hundred thousand of them now. There could be a million by the time we get to Italy. This is what I think about. I think about what would happen if I saw a zombie right now. I’m not armed. I’d have to out run it. I think about what would happen if it caught up to me.

  Sometimes I think I should find a job that I’m happy with and stay there, eeking out a pleasant experience and read books in my spare time, learn to paint or play the piano. The Buddhist approach, I guess. Find the happiness within yourself. Then my daydreams shift to me working as many jobs at the same time as possible, just gunning for the paycheque so that I can retire in twenty years and then learn the piano, read books and do whatever.

  Mostly I think about food.

  There’s going to be paranoia about travelling. International food is going to be heavily scrutinised and quarantined. So realistically the best case scenario for the next five years is that I’ll be back in England, limited to British food and heavy racism until the last of the zombie plague is wiped out. Burkas will be banned, that’s a given. You can’t run the risk of a zombie walking around under a burka.

  It might be beneficial if we’re able to get back into manufacturing, like building cars again. There will be austerity measures. What skills do I have to survive a depression-era Britain? Sweet fuck all. I will be standing in line for some work placement program. They will see my incredible list of skills and size me up.

  “It says here you would like to help repopulate the human race?”

  “Yes, sir,” I will say.

  “Do you have experience in that?”

  “Not as much as I would like.”

  “You mentioned you have a Bachelor of Arts.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “I … sorry?”

  “Why did you choose to study a Bachelor of Arts?”

  “… Because I needed a degree.”

  “Upon completion of your degree you worked in a warehouse office?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doing invoicing and filling out orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you fluent in any languages besides English?”

  “Bullshit and sarcasm, sir.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, no. But I do exceptionally well at trivia nights.”

  “Can you fly a plane?”

  “Fly? Yes.”

  “Can you land it as well?”

  “No.”

  “Can you build wind farms off the coast of Scotland?”

  “That would be a new line of work for me.”

  “I see. So what, specifically, can you do for the benefit of your country that others cannot?”

  Part 2.

  Cristina allowed another old man to slip his hand under her shirt and play with her boobs in exchange for two cans of tuna. She wasn’t wearing a bra because it no longer fits. Rachel is having the same problem. The clothes they bought in Spain are now too baggy.

  None of us have had a shower in days. We scrub with whatever water we can find but it’s not enough. We have some soap but we’re still washing ourselves while either fully dressed or in our underwear. Our underwear doesn’t fit any more, so … yeah. I’ve seen a fair bit of Rachel and Cristina’s bush in more than just one glance and I wish I could say I was turned on, but I’m so fucking hungry that I can’t even get aroused anymore.

  Between here and Tunisia is Algeria. I have no idea how we’re going to cross the border. My shoes are breaking apart. The roads are shit. No one is stopping to give us a lift. I have blisters.

  My headache is coming back.

  10 September

  We’re fucked. Utterly fucked. No way out of Africa fucked.

  We were arrested by the Moroccan police, driven to a police station in the back of a van, and thrown into holding cells. Cristina and Rachel were taken to one side of the building. Ediz and I were held in the other side. We weren’t going to see the girls again.

  We all have the same story; that we were travelling through Casablanca when this madness started and couldn’t get home, so we tried to find some other way of getting back. That story holds up for about as long as it takes to look through someone’s passport. None of us have any record of legal entry into the country, so how do four people travelling together with no stamps or visas or anything like that appear to the police? Not well.

  The situation at the time was worse than we imagined. We begged and pleaded for them to help us get back home. We asked for phone calls, to speak to the British government, and those were denied. We asked for human compassion. We asked if there was any way for us to get to England. Failing that, was there any way of getting to Italy? Then we asked if there was any way we could get out of the police station and continue towards Algeria like we’ve been doing for the past couple of days.

  The police officer snorted when I suggested Algeria. Apparently we’re near the border, less than an hour’s drive. He asked if we really wanted to go there. Ediz and I said yes but only with Cristina and Rachel accompanying us. We hadn’t seen the girls in eight hours. Our bags were confiscated. We were talking ourselves in circles. It’s the first time we’ve been separated and the moment the police segregated us it felt like we were facing a firing squad, that the officers were just itching for an excuse to pull the trigger, waiting for us to fuck up by even a little. I was supposed to watch out for Rachel and I was powerless to stop anyone taking her away. I was supposed to keep my bag with me at all times. For the first time in months I didn’t know where it was. They might as well have stripped me naked and walked me through the streets.

  I began thinking about any way out of there. Maybe Cristina would bargain her way out like she had bargained for food. What would it take for someone to allow her and three undocumented immigrants out of a holding cell to wander through your country again? Maybe she would g
o through all of that only for us to be arrested again a day later.

  An officer led Ediz and I back into a cell. There was an old toilet out in the open for us to use. It smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. There was no toilet paper. We waited for another six hours, sleeping occasionally. Then they brought me out again. They went through my belongings. They asked me to explain why I had paperwork explaining how to hot wire a car, maps of the Mediterranean, how to set traps, and basic surgery. I did my best to explain that we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and those things may be important. I was grilled for another few hours as though I was the one responsible for the uprising, as though I brought it with me, and if I didn’t bring it with me then people like me (illegals) did. Firing squad. Itchy fingers. All they needed was for me to become so tired that I accidentally said ‘yes’ to something and they would have me.

  Ediz was able to get just one phrase from an inmate in another cell. “You don’t want to go to Algeria.”

  After several more hours, Ediz and I were released. Our bags and passports were given back to us and, nauseatingly, we noticed that our passports were now stamped as though we had just come from Algeria. I thought the officers were doing us a favour so I thanked them profusely. It turns out I am an idiot.

  They led us through a courtyard and pushed us onto a bus that had its engine running idly. There was still no sign of Rachel and Cristina so Ediz and I stalled, refusing to climb on board until we saw the girls. The officers didn’t take too kindly to us refusing to get on the bus and they literally pushed us on board.

  The engine was running for ten minutes without us moving. We were about to leave Rachel and Cristina behind. Whatever was happening with the Algerian stamp in our passports couldn’t have been a good sign, but what did I know? We were about to be dumped across the border. If that happened, Ediz would’ve looked at me and decided that I wasn’t worth it. I had been too much of a pain in the arse with my headaches and lack of language skills.

  Ediz spoke Arabic and could blend in. He was better off on his own. I would’ve been left to wander northern Africa with no language skills, no survival skills, and I would have been farther away from England than I had ever been in my life. No one would ever know what had happened to me. Rachel and Cristina would have been stranded in a Moroccan police station. The authorities here would have done more damage to us than any zombie uprising could, simply by separating us.

  Then we saw them. The girls were led out towards the bus and then stopped in the middle of the courtyard. The police were looking over to the bus and talking to themselves while the girls had to stand around doing nothing. Ediz caught one look at Rachel and Cristina and mumbled: “Shit, what happened to them?”

  The girls were then pushed onto the bus and told to sit at the front. They saw us at the back and knew we were there, but they didn’t look remotely happy. The driver all but kicked the bus into gear and we lurched forward, out of the police compound, and headed for the Algerian border.

  Now, here is why going to Algeria was a colossally bad idea: the government there has collapsed, rebels are looting the entire country, and a warlord has set himself up as a god-king. Not just a king, not just a god, but a combination of the two. At least, that’s how he’s being talked about over the state radio station. Millions of people are leaving Algeria as quickly as they can. Morocco has set up one hell of a blockade at the border and aren’t taking any chances in letting people in. Algeria is in a full blown exodus because of a coup with an insane and delusional dictator running the show and … we’re now in Algeria.

  The police kicked us off the bus and forced us through a fence, telling us to fuck off. The gate clicked behind us. Then we figured out why our passports had been stamped. This was officially our last port of call so they were deporting us.

  That’s right, I’ve been deported from Morocco. One day I might laugh about that. Right now, though, we’re pretty fucked. And guess what a US destroyer is doing out in the Mediterranean? Bombing the fuck out of the country I’m standing in. I’m told an aircraft carrier is going to help. I’m a tad disappointed by that.

  Oh yeah, there are rebels here. And not just a few, no! A handful of rebels would be easy to deal with. The real number, I’m told, is fifteen thousand.

  In this very city. The one I’m in. Fifteen thousand rebels are just around the corner fighting the forces of a god-king.

  So yeah, we’re pretty fucked. We are mostly white, mid-twenties, easily ransomable, and if we don’t fetch a high enough price then we could be beheaded. I like my head. It’s an integral part to my happy-go-lucky lifestyle. And that’s if the humans catch us. If the non-humans catch us … well, we’ll become Satan’s bitch.

  I asked the girls if they were okay. They didn’t want to talk about it. What I have learned is that Cristina is a smart cookie. As soon as we were all separated she started to fake Rachel’s symptoms. Nothing too severe to cause a panic, just looking fluey, nauseous, and very unappealing to anyone who might’ve tried to touch her.

  The border was cluttered with Algerians sitting in their cars, huddled together. It was exactly like Atocha with everyone on the brink of a riot. And ho boy, do we stand out in a crowd.

  We are now utterly dependant on Ediz. He can speak to these people. They were asking him about Morocco, he was asking them about Algeria. There’s a name for the warlord who has taken over the country – Louis Boyer. Now, I know that France used to control Algeria, but the common names around here are Ahmed, Abdel, Aziz, Ahlam … okay, a lot of names starting with ‘A’, but they definitely have an Arabic ring to them. Louis Boyer is not from Algeria. He’s Haitian. Which might go some way in explaining why the US has sent an aircraft carrier to kill him.

  Boyer spent a few years living and working in northern Africa. The majority of his time was in Algeria. The locals are surprised that a foreigner has managed to come in and conquer their country in two months. We’ve heard a dozen different stories and none seem to really align with common sense, but as of today this is what everyone seems to agree on:

  There are pro-Boyer rebels and anti-Boyer rebels. The anti-Boyer rebels shoot zombies. The pro-Boyer rebels do not. Boyer arrived in Algeria, from Haiti, on the 10th of July, two days before I got to Madrid. His previous work here was as a businessman, one of the senior kind of businessmen who signs contracts and makes shit happen. A future CEO, basically. The consensus from the locals, who have heard about him for years, was that he was an arrogant arsehole, a bully, a briber, an exploiter, and he would’ve walked over the corpse of his mother if it could help make him some money. He was here for five years and made a name for himself in the press. Then he left. Now he’s back and he’s overthrown the government. He’s trying to seize the rest of the country as well. Wonderful.

  We asked about getting a boat but the navy won’t be happy to see us. What’s left of the military has gone into a state of panicked emergency. If they see a little dingy zipping along the coastline they will open fire. So we asked about getting a car, truck or bus to drive to Tunisia. We got to see a lot of shaking heads, especially since we don’t have the money to do any of these magical things we dream about. Ediz told us that these people are now trying to head to Mali and we might want to consider joining them. I asked how far away that is. It’s two thousand kilometres south, into the heart of Africa. I asked that we not consider that as an actual possibility. Ediz said we might not have a choice.

  I’ll point out that it’s two thousand kilometres to the border of Mali. From there it’s still another thousand kilometres to get to a city that can help us. From there we would have to cross through Burkina Faso or the Ivory Coast and hope that Ghana will take us in. Essentially we would have to travel through that whole fat belly part of Africa that sticks out into the Atlantic. It’s two thousand eight hundred miles.

  I didn’t want to know how far away that actually was. Ediz knows. Now I know. I didn’t want to know but now I do. It’s the same distance
from London to the Iranian border.

  At this rate, we’re not leaving Africa. We can’t risk going any farther into Algeria because it’s a warlord’s paradise. We certainly can’t go along the coast because there are rebel fighters, zombies, two navies, and panicked militants who are trying to kill each other. What chance do we have of surviving that? None.

  Boyer spends a lot of time on TV, mocking the West, saying ‘we’ (meaning himself and his loyal followers) will take back this world and restore power to its rightful owner. He says the West will pay for their attacks on Haiti.

  We’ve been able to scrounge together some food but we’ll be out in a day. Cristina is adamant about getting to Italy. At least there she can help us. But we’re still a thousand miles away from Sicily and our options of getting there are quickly becoming exhausted.

  11 September

  I arrived into Madrid with a thirty four inch waist. I’m now down to twenty eight.

  Some of Rachel’s underwear is missing after the police station. I asked her what happened. She and Cristina were held in different rooms for hours. Rachel spent most of her time crying. Cristina still won’t talk about it. She just says that nothing happened and she’s fine.

  We’re in a convoy of cars. Rachel and I are together. Cristina and Ediz are in a different car. We’re heading south. We were able to convince some people to let us join them. One of the guys knows of a river south of here. There’s fish in there. We can eat the fish and stay at the river for as long as necessary. They have a water filter here so we can drink it. It will only take another hour to get there, assuming they’re not all driving into the desert to kill us foreigners, but I’m not getting that vibe from them. We were able to tell them about Morocco and Spain and that no one should be trying to go there. We’ve been trading information for the last couple of hours in very broken languages with a lot of gesturing about. Ediz told me they didn’t leave because of the zombies, they left because of Boyer.