Infected, Zombi The City of the Zol

by Hernández, Claudio

  Running as fast as she could, the woman entered the store again via the wonky hole they had made, being struck by several splinters in the process.

  ‘There was someone out there!’ She shouted at once, dismissing her own bodily acts of contortion.

  The tall man suddenly stood up and pointed at the woman.

  ‘You’re bleeding!’ He announced.

  The woman, indeed, had dried blood on her face, with her ear having clotted in her extreme fright.

  The other man went to her makeshift exit and placed the boards back where they were initially.

  The other two women stood, unperturbed, at the other side of the warehouse, silently. Little by little, the light of day began to disappear as the man placed the boards back on the hole, until, at last, they were left in darkness.

  XLI

  The Sergeant had a spasm in her now bloodshot eyes that made them spin in all directions. There was now something inside of her and she knew it. Her heart then finally stopped beating and she died of blood loss. Then, her head began to shake and her arms began to flail, twisting around up and down. Her legs seemed to peddle on an invisible bicycle under her feet. One of her shoes, a brown slipper, was tossed off to the curb from the doorway of her home.

  Simón had already left the Sergeant’s home and had taken to crawling towards the man waving the large knife around that glinted in the sun.

  The newly zombified Sergeant suddenly sat up, her pupils dilated and her eyes staring off into the shadows that shrouded her brain. If she had been alive she would have soon discovered that the zombies don’t see anything, but rather are attracted to smell and hear. Suddenly her nostrils filled with the bittersweet scent of fresh blood.

  The fat gypsy wielding the large knife was then accompanied by three other gypsy men with large knives that glinted in the sun.

  ‘Keep anyone who comes near at bay!’ the older man shouted. The father of the three young children and the husband of the woman who was waiting behind the gate, crying out to the neighbours, was disgusted by the scene that he was seeing.

  ‘What are these bastards?’ One of his partners asked in a flat voice. He has a well-kept ponytail and a beard. Of course, he had a shiny, steel knife clutched in his hand.

  ‘I don’t know, I have no idea what these things are…’

  He was interrupted by Simón, who had come too close to the father, accompanied by the woman zombie with bloodied hair and guts that hung from her abdomen.

  ‘We should probably prepare for the worse.’

  XLII

  Carmen, Álvaro’s wife, had been losing her patience and, by now, she had become accustomed to the presence of the zombies, who were moaning and groaning outside the walls of the castle, on the hills, in addition to the sounds of ocean waves that were hitting the side of the castle. She tossed her fair, blonde hair back and looked at her husband with an air of indifference, a clear sign that she was ready for him to piss off.

  At the end of the corridor, the twenty or so youths who were chatting amongst themselves, with traces of weariness in their voices, pointed out, from time to time, that the group formed by Álvaro, Javier, Juan, and Diego were all four leaders of the group, and the young Asian tourist noted that the food was now becoming scarce, with their water and beer supplies quickly running out, though they had entered the San Juan Castle with full backpacks, loaded with food and drinks.

  Javier kept stroking his rifle with his fingertips and noticed that the metal was being warmed by the light of the sun. He did not care, however, as Álvaro’s passivity was starting to irritate him. He had the same rifle as Álvaro, a parallel shotgun, 12 millimetres, two shots, with 71-millimetre cannons, English stock, long plates, and impressive engravings of hunting scenes on the butt of the arm. Juan and Diego continued to discuss details of the castle blueprints. Though they didn’t have the blueprints themselves in front of them, by the way that they were speaking and gesturing, one could see that they remembered the structure quite well.

  One of the young men, after complaining, returned to the group of tourists, giving strange jumps as though being affected by gravity. He had removed his brown cap that he was wearing to protect himself from the sun’s rays. It was already noon, and the sun was now directly overhead, over all of Águilas, and perhaps the entire Iberian Peninsula.

  XLIII

  ‘Because you had to piddle, we were almost eaten…’ the man said, waving his arms and index finger in a circle in the air, adding, ‘Whatever.’

  The woman in the red panties let out a sigh as the other blonde woman hissed for them all to be silent.

  The few children that were there remained silent next to the other nameless woman with black hair of Moroccan descent.

  Outside, nails could be heard scratching against the boards that the tall man had put back up to cover the hole. The zombie was leaning against them and could feel and hear the zombie trying to get in. Listening to it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, bristling like hedgehog as a reactionary defence. He opened his mouth in fright, upon hearing the moaning.

  The others remained silent until the zombie finally stopped scratching at the wood and the tall man’s adrenaline had finally dropped.

  Outside, the zombie continued shambling down the long street, already crossing the train tracks towards Barcelona Street after leaving Jiménez Ruano Avenue, the dividing line between Águilas and, what was known as, “the Lawless City”.

  XLIV

  ‘And where could that black magpie have gone?’ Álvaro asked, referring to Father Martín, whom they had recognised as a priest thanks to his cassock. Or perhaps it was simply a madman in disguise?

  Javier leaned over the edge of the wall, furrowing his brow, and straightening back up again. Álvaro did not look back at him.

  ‘But what about those bloody creatures down there?’ Carmen croaked as she continued listening to the moans and groans of the zombies. Yes, they were indeed zombies. She had already come to the conclusion that they were zombies because they shambled, bled, and dragged their entrails along just like the ones in movies. A normal person does not go around dragging his entrails in such a manner without fainting, writhing in pain, or dying.

  ‘Well, we have a plan,’ Diego said. ‘We just need to find an exit.’ After some chatter with Juan, they still had not found an appropriate exit that would lead to the sewers and out to the sea. The castle was full of tunnels, catacombs, and passages, all interwoven like a spider web.

  The plan still had not come to fruition, and the group of six, plus the twenty or so youths were still clustered in the castle, near a long, outer corridor, waiting with their mouths open, like lizards waiting for a fly. Their role was not primary, nor were they fighting for their lives. They were simply waiting, and as the afternoon arrived, the sun still beat down on them from above, like a gigantic, billion-watt bulb.

  Their rifles continued shining in the light of the sun, being caressed by Javier and Álvaro’s fingers. They had not been fired once, luckily. The horde of zombies was still at the foot of the castle, on the hills and in the trees like stupid marionettes, also lacking the strings to move.

  Though, they had a problem in that there was very little water and beer to drink. That still hadn’t changed. Everything was still the same, even in the absence of adrenaline, while they breathed rhythmically and their hearts stabilised. As the fear passed, as did their natural instincts. Their faces reddened as they roasted in the sun, with their t-shirts now becoming increasingly weighed down by sweat, putting on their caps to shield their eyes from the sun. A confrontation between Javier and Álvaro did not rear its head. They were simply refugees, high in a castle, waiting, while down below, zombies were constantly stumbling over each other like children learning to walk.

  XLV

  Fourteen brothers and sisters walked out into the street, nine of them men and the rest women. Six of them were already adults, and the rest young of age,
though they all left together, led by their father. The eldest of the brothers had a large club in his right hand and his head and shoulder tilted, ready to launch the first blow. They knew that something abnormal was happening, they had seen the entire scene from the window that leads to their one-story terrace.

  ‘There’s trouble brewing,’ Ángel announced to the three eldest of the group.

  Antonio, the oldest, nodded.

  ‘We need to keep an eye on each other,’ José added, the second oldest.

  Ángel, the father of the group, had always said that he wanted to form a football team when his neighbours asked him why he had so many children. He laughed with bright eyes and always explained his plans for a football team, laughing in his usual, contagious manner.

  Now they were in the middle of a new problem, and Ángel recognised that several of his neighbours were somehow involved in the scandal, seeing all of the blood everywhere and pieces of flesh and guts strewn about. He knew that something abnormal was happening. He had previously thought that it was some sort of brawl between neighbours and drug addicts at the corner of the street, trying to rob a house.

  Antonio stepped forward towards his father, as this dark complexed man held a knife and waited, praying again and again, with his three children. They were all like hawks, watched over by an even fiercer vulture.

  The Sergeant began to shamble slowly towards Ángel, with her arms outstretched and frothing at the mouth. Her eyes were now an opaque white, but expressing a tenebrous and sinister look. She leaned her head, following the smell of blood. It was close by to her, when suddenly Sebastián came out of his store opposite of her, crying out hysterically with a look of death on his face.

  Antonio stepped forward to help his father, with his head still cocked and his club still tightly grasped in his strong fist, forged by his job in construction. A neighbour of theirs, with a long face, now already zombified, stood in their way, ready to take a bite. Its tongue was dark and its chin was dripping blood. Its jugular had been ripped out, with a long vein hanging loosely out to the side. Antonio did not find this at all normal. The zombie did not speak, only grunted with blind eyes. It raised its arms towards Antonio, and Antonio struck with a tightened fist that made his club harder. The blow towards the zombie’s head sounded like a nut being cracked open, but a thousand times louder. The zombie’s jaw popped off and blood spattered everywhere. The zombie’s head tilted back violently, as if it were held by a rubber band that had just snapped. It then fell to the ground, where it only slightly moved, its fingers still pointing towards the dark complexed Antonio.

  ‘Blimey, what the Hell is…’ he began, lowering his club.

  Sebastián ran in terror to Vicente Ruano Street, with Cabeza del Caballo Street being behind his ship. Towards the road, he had found himself with more zombies. More bloody zombies, shambling, with random spasms and white, opaque eyes. He started to pant, spotting an open area in which to make an escape, but a hand had grabbed him from behind and he had been scratched.

  Sebastián had turned around and saw his neighbour from two doors down completely covered in blood with a large, open hole in his chest, deep enough that he could see his exposed lungs, which were now not moving. His heart pounded savagely as another hand had touched his sweaty neck. It was another one of those zombie creatures, though he unfortunately was not privy to their nature still.

  He tried to escape, but more hands gripped his arm and scratched him, blood falling down by the force of gravity. Dropped of his blood spattered the asphalt and his eyes opened wide like those of an owl, with an extreme expression of fear and horror. He had become paralysed, useless, like in a dream where all one can do is float.

  Though, there were still people running in the streets. His neighbours, of course, though some of them were shambling as though cleaning the asphalt. Sebastián, in a panic that kept him immobilised, suddenly felt a sharp pain from deep inside that made him howl. A zombie had closed its teeth into his jugular and he suddenly felt the warm sensation of blood sliding down his neck, smelling his own blood, knowing that his time would soon come. There was a bright light that grew more and more, and he saw the world disappear as he fell to the ground, limp, combined with the cracking of his skull.

  XLVI

  The straight-haired brunette bitten in the ear started to feel ill. She had a sudden onset fever and began to seize.

  The tall man touched her forehead and felt a burning at his fingers. The plump man sat still against the wall, doing nothing. One of the two women, the other brunette, had whispered that the plump man was completely useless.

  ‘It’s possible that your ear has become infected,’ the tall man explained as he sat down on the floor in front of her. The five-year-old girl stood up and pointed towards the woman from the shadows of the warehouse.

  ‘Is she ill?’ She asked in a meek voice.

  ‘Yes,’ the blonde woman replied back, who was also sitting with the rest, waiting and hiding in the dark. Outside everything had grown silent… for the moment.

  ‘And what is wrong with her?’ The girl with tangled hair asked.

  ‘She has a fever,’ the plump man replied, leaning back on the floor.

  The girl turned her head in the shadows and saw the silhouette of the plump man sitting opposite of the women.

  ‘And why does she have a fever?’ The girl asked, insistently.

  ‘How should I know?!’ The plump man barked at her.

  ‘Oi oi! Be nice to her!’ The tall man barked back, staring at his silhouette.

  ‘Why? We are all going to die anyway?’ The plump man replied back, laughing out loud like a maniac in the shadows.

  The little girl had now gown frightened, and went to sit with the other women, measuring her steps well, trying to adjust to the darkness.

  ‘You brute!’ The blonde woman snorted.

  The woman with the red panties began to move her eyes spasmodically, though no one could see this in the dark.

  XLVII

  Father Martín appeared suddenly, as if by magic, in his shabby cassock that no longer shined in the sun. He was at the foothills of the San Juan castle, but now had moved to Calafria Street, a focal point to his parishioners. With a Bible in his hand, he began to speak.

  ‘This is just what we need… ’ Antonio said, his lips twitching and his eyes narrowing. ‘What is this bloke doing here?’

  Antonio did not like priests. He was not Catholic and, of course, did not believe in things like church or the existence of God. It was the subject of many debates between him and his brothers and sisters, especially with José, the second eldest brother.

  ‘He’s the priest from the San José Church,’ José pointed out, signalling towards him with his finger. ‘The one over in the Spanish Plaza, in front of the city hall.’

  ‘I suppose that now he believes that he is Don Francisco of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen church,’ Antonio replied back in a harsh voice, as he knew that Don Francisco had helped his brother-in-law’s mother.

  The four gypsies stopped at the end of the street, on the corner, peering like frightened sheep with eyes wide open and constantly praying. Their knives had now been lowered, but still at the ready, lest they…

  ‘The time has come for you to acknowledge your sins!’ The priest began, stretching out his arms once again towards the open sky on this late afternoon. The sun was now three quarters of the way towards setting behind the mountains, for a reddened twilight.

  ‘Your deaths,’ Alberto, the youngest of the brothers, said. He was tall, sturdy, and had a temper problem, requiring all of his brothers to restrain him should he become too angry.

  The zombies were still shambling inside the centre, though now they were all focused on the family. The rest of the neighbours in Calafria Street had already been zombified, and their white, opaque eyes peeked towards the family, with their hands holding their weapons tightly. The only one left alive was the neighbour nickna
med Porringui, who was at this door watching the entire event unfold, his eyes like olives and his belly that he always caressed protruding.

  ‘Uh oh, what are our neighbours doing?’ He asked, his voice sounding like the chorus of a song with his lips forming a tiny, wrinkled O shape. ‘José, should see this,’ he had concluded.

  XLVII

  The woman in the red panties began to have convulsions and made strange noises through her rough, wet throat. Her eyes narrowed, and began to transform white and opaque, though no one else could see her transformation in the darkness. However, if listened to carefully, one could hear her spasmodic movements and low moans.

  The two women stood up and came to each other’s side, leaning against the damp, splintery wall. The children had a sound of fear in their breath, dragging their small feet in the mud of the floor, until one of the women grabbed them with her warm hand.

  The strange noises were become stronger and louder, harder to diagnose. Was she belching. The tall man figured as much, without wanting to get too close. They were wrong, and there were spikes in the groans as if in pain. Belching down not continue for long periods of time, nor is it so dry, like the motor of a motorcycle.

  He was on alert, though he did not know why. He felt a sudden surge of compassion for her. In the shadows, he watched as her arms began to spasm as though being electrocuted. Her legs were now lying in the damp mud, also beginning to spasm up to about chest level, bigger than before. This worried him even more.

  ‘What is happening?’ The seven-year-old boy asked, clinging to the woman’s arm.