My hand was covered in spider veins. They hadn’t burst yet, but very soon they would. Then I remembered I’d tucked the gun in my belt. I fumbled around and finally got it out of its holster. My eyes were blurry, so I couldn’t see well. I raised the gun to eye level and checked the safety.
Two shots. First the cat, then me. Fast and clean.
Just then the mule hopped over a broken bicycle in the middle of the road, and the gun flew out of my hands.
“Nooooo!” I growled, twisting my lips, but I couldn’t do anything else. The reins hung down from Hope’s neck, so I couldn’t stop her. My muscles contracted in a sort of macabre St. Vitus dance. I’d lost control of my body, so we just kept going, leaving the black Beretta lying in the road, the last rays of sunset glinting off it.
I’d failed. I’d failed everyone. I couldn’t save myself or save them. I’d failed Lucullus, who struggled inside the saddlebag trying to escape. I’d failed Prit, who’d always been a faithful, true friend, even risking his life for me.
And Lucia. Lucia. Luuucíaaa. Luuucccíaaaa. Lcxciciiaia. Lucciihayayaa.
A huge black wave crashed over me. Then everything went dark.
42
TAUBEN
12 MILES OUTSIDE OF GULFPORT
“Virgin of Kazan! That’s a horrible smell!” Prit groaned and covered his nose.
“You think that’s bad,” Mendoza replied cheerfully, “wait’ll we get to the dump. It’s about a mile from here, past that hill. Now that’s a truly unbearable stench.”
Gulfport dumped most of its trash into the ocean. Toxic waste and pollutants were thrown into a landfill a few miles from the city. That included the bodies of helots and the Undead that collapsed close to the Wall, overcome by fungus. No one wanted hundreds of putrefying corpses lying around causing an epidemic.
The convoy rolled slowly down a rough road that wound through abandoned buildings. One tank led the way and another one brought up the rear. Garbage trucks and a bulldozer—their cabs reinforced by iron bars—made up the rest of the convoy.
They left the city at dusk through the gates in the Wall. The bulldozer slowly pushed aside the crowd of Undead that surrounded the city, trying to find a way in. Then the convoy moved as fast as possible to outrun the Undead pursuing them. It was not difficult to leave the Undead behind. Previous expeditions had cleared the road of debris, and the creatures were in bad condition. Even those that were “fresher” couldn’t keep up with the speeding vehicles.
When the helots first told Pritchenko that the Undead were being devoured by fungus, he hadn’t bought it. Then the Ukrainian saw it with his own eyes. It boded well for the future. But first they had to gain control of Gulfport and the Cladoxpan reserves—or all the helots were doomed to suffer the next stage of Greene’s plan.
“You sure we’re carrying the cargo?” he asked Mendoza for the third time.
“Don’t know, güero,” snapped the Mexican. “And I won’t know till we unload all the piles of garbage and bodies. But I’m sure of one thing. The Just have never failed us, and I don’t think they’ll start now.”
Prit nodded and checked his weapon. Everyone in the convoy was wound tight. The assault on the city was planned for the next night. Everything was riding on the next twenty-four hours—the helots and their allies were nervous. Their plans had never progressed this far. Even Greene’s snitches were in the dark. The reverend knew something was brewing in the ghetto, but he didn’t know what it was or when it would take place. The missing piece of the puzzle was the Cladoxpan supply that they hoped was hidden in those trucks. As soon as they had their hands on it, the Wrath of the Just could be unleashed on that racist city.
The convoy labored up the hill and came to a halt at the top. At the bottom of a ravine was a mountain of charred debris being slowly consumed by a bonfire that had burned for months. A dozen Undead wandered here and there in the lunar landscape. The tank in the lead revved its engine and advanced through the fires. A pair of sharpshooters leaned out the hatch. They raced up to an Undead, opened fire, and moved on. Before Pit realized it, they’d secured the entire area.
“There aren’t very many of them anymore, so it’s easy,” said the driver of the truck Prit rode in, a middle-aged man with an Indian accent. “Not that long ago, it took us several hours—and a lot of ammo—to get close enough to unload safely.”
“Apu knows what he’s talking about. He’s one of the oldest residents of the ghetto. He’s been making this trip for nearly two years,” said Mendoza.
The man flashed a dazzlingly white smile and shrugged modestly. He raised his arm, revealing the scar of an old wound. “It happened about a year and a half ago. There were about two hundred of those creatures out there. One of them found a way inside the cab. But we got through, as always.”
Prit studied him. People amazed him. Despite all the hardships, despite living a miserable, enslaved life, they still had the will to live.
“Is your name really Apu, like the convenience store owner on The Simpsons?” he asked with a sly smile.
“It’s a long story,” the man replied with a wave of his hand. “My real name has too many letters for anyone who wasn’t born in Sri Lanka.”
“I can imagine,” Prit said, turning to Mendoza. “Now what?”
“Now, we take out the trash, bro,” he replied, as Apu maneuvered the truck into position. “Time to get our hands dirty.”
They positioned the dump trucks around a pit and started unloading their stinking cargo. Prit watched as arms, legs, and heads disappeared into the roaring bonfire along with medical waste and rotting garbage. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled the air.
“Hey! Be careful!” Mendoza shouted, waving his arms.
A few helots scrambled to the top of the trucks, ignoring the terrible smell. Armed with flashlights, they made their way to the back of the truck bed. After a while they came back out, flashing a thumbs-up.
“They’re in the back, tied down with steel cables! A dozen barrels in each truck!” they shouted above the noise of the engines as they dragged one out.
“Perfect,” murmured Mendoza. He opened the lid of a barrel with the tip of his knife. “Let’s have a look.”
When he uncovered the barrel, Cladoxpan’s pungent aroma wafted into the air. The men smiled and walked closer to the barrel. A few were glassy-eyed and couldn’t look away from the milky liquid.
“Gato . . .” The Hindu truck driver clucked his tongue and swallowed hard. His hands shook like an alcoholic’s. “One sip. I think we’ve earned it.”
The Mexican scowled, then nodded slightly. “One glass each. Not a drop more.”
The helots cheered and gathered around the barrel. Prit stepped aside. He noticed that the men downed their glasses in great greedy gulps. The women sipped theirs. A few even saved some for later.
The Ukrainian smiled. He was sure his pal would’ve made some funny remark about that, and they’d have struggled not to burst out laughing. They’d have stood off to the side, pursing their lips, with tears in their eyes, choking back their laughter.
When he thought about his friend, he felt a deep pain. He hadn’t accepted losing him. It would take a long time to come to terms with it. The Ukrainian was a hard man. He’d lost a lot of friends in Chechnya during the war. Then his wife and son had disappeared in the pandemic. He’d grown thick-skinned and hid his feelings. But feelings didn’t go away. Prit knew they’d surface sooner or later. When they did, the pain would be huge and hard to deal with. For now he held it in and kept going. For Lucia’s sake.
She was devastated. At first she’d had high hopes. Their wily friend was a man of many talents. They tried to convince themselves that his train car had unloaded close to town and that he’d find his way back to Gulfport. No deportee had ever done it, but if anyone could make it back, he could.
But it had been
seven days and there was no sign of him. Even if he was still alive, he must have run out of Cladoxpan. When Strangärd told them the terrible news—that Greene had infected their friend with the virus as part of his banishment—they lost hope.
“OK, everyone’s had a drink. Time to go!” Mendoza shouted.
The helots, visibly relaxed after their drinking, secured the barrels with their precious contents inside each truck, and climbed back into their vehicles. Mendoza gave the order to take off, and the dump trucks started back up the hill, away from the trash and the burned bodies.
A helot in the truck with Mendoza and Prit pointed at something in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked, wide-eyed.
Prit let out a string of Russian curse words, and Mendoza crossed himself. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, terrified. The whole column screeched to a halt.
On the hill, a mule with a body slung on her back trotted happily toward the convoy.
43
Prit jumped out of the truck before it came to a stop and ran toward the mule. It’s gotta be him.
When he reached the mule he stopped, panting. The rider lay facedown across the mule’s neck. His legs were tangled in a torn saddlebag slung over the mule’s back. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d have fallen to the ground.
Something shifted inside one of the bags and uttered a meow that sounded very familiar. Pritchenko’s face lit up as he reached into the saddlebag.
Suddenly the body slumped over the mule let out a horrifying groan.
Prit froze. The body on the mule rose up and looked at him with an all-too-familiar blank expression. His deathly pale skin was riddled with thousands of spidery veins.
Oh, hell, it can’t be true!
“Get away from that thing!” Mendoza shouted as he ran up behind Prit, trying to catch his breath. When he saw what was on the mule, he drew his gun and cocked it loudly. “Let’s get this over with,” he murmured and took careful aim.
“No!” Prit shouted. “Don’t shoot! Look at his veins!”
“They’re swollen, like all the monsters,” Mendoza insisted.
“Yes, but they haven’t burst yet!” Pritchenko caught his sleeve, speaking quickly and urgently. “His transformation isn’t complete yet! We can still help him!”
“He might not be completely transformed, but he doesn’t have far to go,” Mendoza replied caustically. “How do you plan to help him?”
“With Cladoxpan,” said Prit, stern-faced. “With a massive dose. It might work.”
“We’re gonna need every drop of the stuff back in Bluefont,” Mendoza snapped.
“Mendoza, don’t fuck with me,” said Prit with a snarl. “You’ve got thousands of gallons—I just need three or four. Do I have to break a couple of your ribs to change your mind?”
“OK, güero, take it easy.” Mendoza raised his hands in surrender. “Take what you need. But you’ll have to do it. I’m not getting anywhere near that rabid mouth.”
As if he understood, the rider on the mule let out a threatening groan and stretched his hands toward Mendoza. Unfazed, Prit hurried to the first truck and grabbed two helots who were watching the scene from a few yards away. After a couple of minutes, the three of them came back up the hill, rolling one of the barrels of Cladoxpan.
“How’re you gonna get him to drink it?” Mendoza asked. “He won’t do it on his own.”
“I’ll do it the old Soviet army way,” Prit replied as he stood the barrel on end and pried off the lid with his knife. “If you can’t do something the polite way, you use brute force.”
The Ukrainian came up behind the rider and, before he could react, grabbed him in a judo hold. At the same time, the two helots cut the straps that held the man to the mule. Then Prit shoved him headfirst into the barrel.
At first the thing fought back furiously, but the Ukrainian held his head under with one iron hand while the other gripped him in a rugby tackle. When the thing couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he took a swallow. The Ukrainian pulled him out by his hair and then, after a few seconds, plunged him back into the barrel.
Pritchenko repeated this maneuver a dozen times with the coldhearted fury of a Soviet interrogator. Each time, the thing swallowed more and more Cladoxpan. Finally the seizures ceased and his body relaxed. Satisfied, Prit pulled him out of the barrel and gently laid him on the ground next to the mule, which watched, wide-eyed.
“Now what?” Mendoza asked.
“Now we wait,” said Prit, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “And cross our fingers.”
When I first opened my eyes, I was overcome by nausea. A foul stench hung in the air, and my lungs felt as if I were about to drown. I was lying on my back and someone had laid a blanket over me. It was dark and the stars twinkled in the sky. By the light of several huge bonfires, I could make out figures in the shadows.
I leaned to one side and vomited for what seemed like an eternity. My head pounded. I felt like I had the most monstrous hangover on record. But I was alive. I was alive!
That realization overwhelmed me. Somehow I’d escaped death, or rather nondeath. I was weak, bruised, and bone tired, but I hadn’t become an Undead.
“Look who finally decided to wake up,” said a familiar voice behind me.
“I would’ve laid here longer, but this place stinks. I’m sure you chose it,” I said as I struggled to sit up.
Prit and I threw our arms around each other. My friend sighed with relief, and I shook uncontrollably as my body readjusted to being alive.
“I’ve told you hundreds of times, don’t go anywhere without me,” the Ukrainian scolded me with a smile. “See? You nearly got yourself killed.”
“That was a close one. But you wouldn’t have liked the trip. There wasn’t a single bar anywhere.”
A couple of helots walked up, whispering among themselves and pointing at me. Then a few more came over to get a look. A few crossed themselves and looked at me with a strange, reverent expression as they talked among themselves.
“What the hell’re they saying?” Prit asked. He spoke pretty good Spanish, but couldn’t follow their Puerto Rican accent.
“It’s a passage from the Bible: He descended into hell and rose from the dead,” I replied as fatigue washed over me again. “They think it’s a sign. The mule too.”
“They think you’re the Messiah?” Prit asked, incredulous.
“That’s stupid,” I said sleepily. “I’m no Messiah. But if believing that helps them bring down that false Messiah in Gulfport, I’ll be happy to put on a white robe.”
“You won’t have to,” said Prit as he helped me to my feet. “In about twenty hours, the ghetto will rise up. We’re going to take out Greene and his goons once and for all.”
“What the hell’re you talking about, Prit?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Now we gotta get out of here.”
I climbed into a truck as the rest of the convoy started their engines. Night was falling, and the helots were nervous about what they might run into out there in the dark. Prit climbed in next to me and the convoy started to roll.
“This is Carlos Mendoza,” he said and pointed to the tall, stocky Mexican man who was glaring at me. “Don’t pay attention to anything he says. He’s got a bad temper. I’ve got a broken nose to prove it. But deep down, he’s not a bad guy. He’s the leader of all these people.”
“We’ve met. The lawyer on the bridge in Gulfport, remember?” I stuck out my hand.
“Well, well. So you’re the gachupina’s boyfriend,” he replied, making no move to shake my hand. “I must admit, you’re a tough nut to crack. You’re the first guy to come back from the Wasteland, though you just barely made it.”
“I got lucky,” I said, lowering my hand. “If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have lasted another half hour.” I turned back to Prit, who bea
med like a father watching his son learn to ride a bike. “What the hell’re you all doing here, Prit?”
The Ukrainian explained everything that had happened. Mendoza joined the conversation, reluctantly at first, but got more and more animated as he reeled off his plans. The ghetto uprising was his obsession. The plan was all he thought about. And he was just a few hours from carrying it out.
When we were three miles from Gulfport, the truck driver slammed on the brakes. The lead tank had stopped, and the crew peered out the window. In the distance a red flare shot up in the sky, followed by two more.
“What is it?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
The Mexican looked at us, his face pale and drawn in rage. “It’s the ghetto! That’s the emergency signal for a raid. The Greens have attacked!”
“How bad is the situation?” Prit asked.
“Really bad. They must’ve uncovered our plans.” Mendoza shouted into the walkie-talkie, ordering the convoy to proceed at full speed. Then he turned to us. “Get ready to fight. I just hope we get there in time. The ‘cleansing of the ghetto’ has begun.”
44
“Ale, we need more rags,” Lucia said. “And some bottles. We’re nearly out.”
Alejandra dashed to the back of the room where they were making Molotov cocktails with half a dozen other people. She grabbed a handful of cotton strips and a wheelbarrow full of empty glass bottles and rushed back to her post.
Workshops like theirs filled the ghetto. Some were making Molotov cocktails while others were making bullets, although they weren’t sure that the ammunition would be reliable in battle.
Prit was right, thought Lucia. Our supply of weapons is almost laughable. If we don’t take the Wall in the first assault, they’ll squash us like bugs.
The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z) Page 25