Infected, Zombi The City of the Zol

by Hernández, Claudio

  Father Isidoro, coming out of his prayer, saw Father Guillermo leaning uneasily and cloths vibrating in the wind.

  What is happening here? Is what he would have asked, before Father Martín squeezed another injection into Father Isidoro’s back, quickly reaching, but it was too late. His eyes began to narrow inside his reddened sockets.

  ‘Now all will be at my service,’ Father Martín announced, opening his arms and glancing over to the wooden image of Christ, hanging motionless over the tabernacle.

  LXII

  They slept under the steps of what was known as One Hundred Fifty Houses, an enclosure with black, heavy metal doors that closed tight at night. The interior was like a large plaza, filled with palm trees so high that they seemed to reach the sun and moon, surrounded by iron fencing. On either side of the great plaza were doors to one hundred fifty houses, protected by bars as dark as night made of wrought iron. It is an area where locals lived, but lately, in the last two years, the flats had been rented out to black and Moroccan men and women. In addition, there were also Ecuadorians, Venezuelans, and Bolivians, all immigrants arriving to the country looking for work in the countryside, escaping their respective countries’ standards of living. The local police, who were now virtually non-existent, already knew that this was a sanctuary enclosure, but turned a blind-eye. As long as they paid the IBI every year, that was enough.

  The plump man and the nervous man both slept with one eye open, hugging the children tightly in their laps, using their stomachs like pillows. They couldn’t breathe easily, though, given the situation. The two women slept on the other side of the wall, under the steps that led to the rubbish bins.

  That night, the rubbish collectors never arrived.

  When the first rays of sunlight filtered like lantern beams through the cracks in the stairs and lit their faces, they found themselves still alive. They managed to catch some sleep from six to seven-thirty.

  The plump man opened his eyes, holding his pistol in his hand.

  LXIII

  Diego arched his back, cracking his joints and welcoming the new day, in spite of everything. His wandering mind considered it grateful that, at least, they were still alive. This was very important, and besides, they still needed to plan their escape via the sewer ducts. His great knowledge of the castle’s structure and history would allow him to, more or less, guess how to escape, now that the zombies were surrounding the castle entrance. The castle was, unfortunately, guarded by a single drawbridge which threatened to bend under the weight of all of the zombies on the other end of the door.

  ‘They’re close,’ Javier said, raising his rifle. A flash of light from the morning sun shined off the metal.

  ‘For the moment, we are safe up here,’ Diego said through his dry lips.

  ‘Indeed, I can see that,’ Javier said ironically, pointing to the front door. It was practically bent and the wood creaked under the enormous weight of the horde of zombies pushing behind it.

  ‘Shit!’ Juan exclaimed, shaving his beard.

  Susana, with eyes wide open, let out a small cry that was quickly muted by her hand.

  ‘It can still last a bit longer,’ Diego explained, knowing that it probably wasn’t true.

  ‘In reality, we will probably die of dehydration before they can manage to knock it down,’ Álvaro explained, leaning one leg up towards the edge of the passage.

  ‘Álvaro!’ Carmen shrieked, frowning.

  ‘Yes, thank you for your encouragement,’ Javier remarked sarcastically, glancing at his rifle.

  Susana stared at him from out of the corner of her eye. Sometimes her husband spoke in this same morbid fashion, a fruit of their relationship, which was until now, nil.

  At the end of the passage, the younger tourists were waving their arms in a long, continuous yawn, as if sleeping were the most rewarding thing in the world. Javier looked at them from the corner of his eyes and lowered the butt of the rifle down into the toe of his shoe.

  ‘Look at this, as if they were on holiday,’ Javier whispered.

  ‘We were just on holiday, honey,’ Susana reminded him.

  ‘It’s true, how could I forget?’ Javier replied cynically. ‘Then the zombies interrupted our tour.’

  A silly laugh filled the air, air that smelled of salt water and algae.

  LXIV

  The elderly woman dialled the emergency number and the local police, but the phone was engaged. She finally hung up.

  ‘No one is answering, it’s engaged,’ she said in a tired voice to her husband, Eusebio, who was lying in bed in the foetal position, suffering from renal colic. This wasn’t the first time that it happened.

  ‘I insist!’ Eusebio voice sounded, like a siren, from the strong pain that he had on the left side of his stomach.

  María extended her flaccid arm against, picked up the phone, and pressed the call button.

  A minute later, she gave up again.

  ‘It’s engaged, there’s only a beep,’ she explained, gesturing with his large, white hands.

  ‘My bloody balls are starting to hurt!’ Eusebio shouted, gesturing wildly with his hands and pressing on the area from where the pain radiated.

  They lived in an urban development called Rubial, which was an extension of Águilas, known for its luxurious bungalows that almost everyone envied. Although it was possible for one to see this development from the top of San Juan Castle, it was a very remote area for the moment, free of deranged zombies in the streets. The shots emanating from the city centre the past few days were also confused for firecrackers in Rubial.

  But their turn would soon come.

  Them too.

  LXV

  The fourteen brothers and sisters, and their parents, Ángel and Carmen, spent the night on the terrace of the roof, taking turns watching in pairs, while the rest slept on the mattress with unease. But it was hard to sleep until dawn, with the silence that currently reigned on the streets of Calafria and La Cabeza de Caballo.

  The family’s neighbour, another gypsy and his two sons, had gone to the Norther Health Centre, but ended up spending the night hiding behind a bush, leaving their wives and children alone inside the house with no more protection than iron-tempered bars and a door sans lock.

  But fortune decided that the horde of zombies should leave the One Hundred Houses district, which they did at about midnight, gasping and moaning in the miserable moonlight.

  Porringui had locked himself up with his wife and four children in his home, turning the key twice, bolting, and turning the key to another lock installed near the top of the door.

  When he peered out the window protected by a wrought-iron fence and saw the empty streets, he decided that it was time to take another look. On that hot summer morning, the keys rang against inside the door locks.

  ‘Dada, are you fine?’ Antonio asked in a clear voice.

  His father nodded, pulling out a toothpick from his pocket and placed it in his mouth.

  ‘They appear to be all gone,’ José said, the second eldest in the chain of fourteen siblings. No one was in the street.

  Ángel, their gather, was now fiddling with the toothpick between his teeth.

  ‘Check, José. Check if there are any hiding around the corner,’ his father said in a rough voice, coughing a bit.

  ‘It looks like the floor of a slaughterhouse out there!’ Mario said, another brother, leaning against the fence of the terrace and staring wide-eyed at the road, covered in blood.

  ‘Check,’ said Ángel, nibbling the toothpick which he had to the side of his mouth like a hand-rolled cigarette.

  ‘Are they gone, Ángel?’ Carmen asked from the mattress, with wide-eyes that expressed uneasiness and fear. Her lips, which were now a pale white, were trembling.

  ‘Carmeeeeeen…’

  LXVI

  The gypsies formed a line heading towards the Northern Health Centre, which was about 3 kilometres away. The father, guard
ed by two, long-haired young men with large knives in their hands, advanced with his belly protruding.

  ‘Be ready for a possible shot,’ he announced, raising his bastion with a bronze handle. Was it in the form of a lion’s head? A dog? No, it was an incomplete replica of his own head, but he did not like it, so he did not pay up.

  Behind him, other gypsies followed suit and knew where they were going, but did not know what awaited them.

  LXVII

  The waiting room was filled with people suffering from bouts of dizziness, vomiting, and high fevers. They had all explained that they had been attacked by other people, showing their infected bites and scratches. The others, who had been bitten in their jugular or had had their entrails ripped out, had been left behind on the roads, in the Spanish Plaza, the children’s park, the beaches, and the port. Though, there were still many beaches remaining and many other tourist areas in Águilas that were still free from the zombie scourge.

  Little by little, the zombies would take over if all progressed as planned by Father Martín. The Northern Health Centre was to collapse soon, as there were currently five nurses working, with slightly pale and yellowed skin and yellowed eyes, equipped with syringes…

  Though, they were not equipped with good intentions. They formed part of Father Martín’s plan. One of his many plans that he executed from the shadows. They had the serum of life in their syringes, a secret that only Father Martín had managed to uncover, three centuries after the Turkish and Berber attacks on the San Juan de las Águilas Castle.

  The half-dozen tubes filled with the serum of life had been delivered the previous afternoon by Father Martín, just after he was shot in the heart by the officer. Father Martín had arrived to the Northern Health Centre, with a giant hole in his chest where his heart could be seen, with a syringe hidden under his cassock, and stuck the needle into the arm of one of the nurses. Moments later, the nurse began to groan and her eyes turned an opaque white in their sockets. A thick drool spilled from the corner of her mouth, sliding over the red jasmine lipstick on her lips.

  Another nurse entered, and had come under the same fate, as did three more, all on duty that evening. Among them was a doctor, wearing a white coat just like the nurses.

  Father Martín raised his cross in one hand and half a dozen tubes, containing a violet liquid, in his other hand, and began his tirade.

  That, of course, was the previous day, near night time, before the majority of the patients arrived to the health centre. The nurses used the serum of life on those who entered, while they seized and drooled before leaving towards the health centre car park. All of them were ready to walk the streets of Majadas, a district with many inhabitants that were still ignorant of what was happening in Águilas.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, sir?’ One of the nurses asked in a rough, hoarse voice, as if she were grunting the message.

  ‘A man with his face covered in blood has bitten me in the ear!’ The thin man explained, sitting on one of the metal chairs in the living room. ‘The bloody son of a whore had white eyes, and after being bit, I had a fever and felt as though I were to vomit.’

  ‘I’m going to inject you with an antibiotic,’ the nurse with a pale complexion, different from any other woman, explained. ‘It is possible that the wound may be infected.’

  The man, however, saw something in her that struck fear into his heart. Like a hammer striking at his ribs. He saw something in her that struck him.

  ‘Are… you sure?’

  He was unable to finish his question when suddenly the needle penetrated his right shoulder and saw the strange coloured liquid enter his body. It produced a slight pain. It wasn’t like injecting Nolotil, but it hurt in any case.

  The white-eyed nurse addressed the woman sitting in another chair, clutching her bleeding arm. Drops of blood spattered the floor and formed a long, coagulated trail of blood.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, madam?’ She began, lifting the syringe into the air.

  There was a ruckus in the background, and what seemed to be a convulsion.

  The nurse simply smiled.

  LXVIII

  There are two types of zombies: the carriers and the infected. Father Martín really had found the best kept secret in the history of Águilas since the 11th century, when Hins-A-Akila reigned, a strong power that would protect Al-Andalus. The Arab geographer, Al Bakri, had been put in charge of redesigning the central part of the castle during the Islamic period. At that time, trade between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula was very closely controlled. Águilas, heavily controlled by the Almoravids, created trade routes. It was at that time that the first experiments of the serum of life were performed on living soldiers. The immediate answer was death. Later, Hins-A-Akila began to see the fruits of his labours. The soldiers who drank from the serum of life went mad, though didn’t die when a sword was plunged through their hearts.

  The secret was well kept until the 18th century, at the time in which King Phillip IV learned of the castle invasion by the Berbers, giving them access into Águilas and Lorca. That was when the secret came to light again. After rebuilding the castle’s defences and adding the San José and San Felipe Towers, the Turks entered into the action. The serum of like was applied to the soldiers defending the San Juan Castle from the Berbers and Turks.

  Then, a small army that carried its entrails in its hands began to make its way into the other army, leaving the castle defenceless, and spreading the virus to the enemies, who also went mad and began to shamble, leaving their arms inert as if they were inflicted with a heavy load.

  Those who drank from the serum of life, created in the 11th century, and improved a century later by another Arab king, could speak and were self-aware. Those who were bitten or scratched by these became irrational zombies, pushed only by the smell of blood, shambling with no discernible aim.

  Since then, nothing was known of this serum of life, neither of those who had drank of it, nor of those who had been infected by the drinkers. The secret was kept for three centuries.

  That is, until Father Martín, who knew of the existence of the serum, explored the castle and found the recipe, deep in the main tower, next to the cistern and the sewer ducts. He had experimented with severed limbs to start, which began to seize and twitch, before injecting himself with the serum of life in his own veins. The results are already known…

  But true immortality was still out of his reach.

  LXIX

  The cellars and the vaults are in the east wing,’ Diego explained, now more awake. ‘Next to the cistern there is a sort of labyrinth of narrow corridors that connect the different cellars from where the cannons where loaded in the 18th century…’

  ‘I had heard the same thing from the architect that designed the city hall.’ Juan began, standing next to Diego, ‘He spoke of the constant reconstructions of the castle and of the new things that could be found here…’

  ‘Exactly!’ Diego interrupted. ‘There is no definitive guide to the interior of the castle, so we will simply have to take a chance. Up here, baking in the sun like lizards, we have no chance.’

  Javier laughed.

  ‘Did I say something funny?’ He asked, spreading his hands with his hands up, instinctively.

  ‘I like lizards,’ Javier confessed, staring into his guiding eyes. ‘Sorry, ignore me.’

  ‘Oh!’ He exclaimed with straight lips, lowering his arms down.

  Álvaro sighed, looking up at the blue morning sky.

  ‘Well you two don’t seem to get along very well, I can see,’ Juan said, stroking his beard.

  ‘We’re brother in laws,’ Javier quipped, flashing a stupid smile, which was more of a thin line drawn on his face under his dull eyes. He began to caress his rifle again with his fingers.

  ‘Well what have we learnt today?’ Diego said sarcastically, with an open smile, looking towards the morning sun. ‘This will be rather interesting, I believe�
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  ‘You can say that again!’ Álvaro said, making his way to the other side of the corridor which overlooked the sea, watching the waves pompously crash against the rocks.

  ‘Put a sock in it, you two! This is absurd! We’re speaking of escaping this bloody castle,’ Juan said, pacing with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I don’t know if you have noticed, but it is this very castle that is saving your arse,’ Javier said forcedly, opening his lips and turning his eyes to the window that gave a panoramic view of Águilas.

  ‘Enough!’ Álvaro replied.

  ‘Okay okay! Settle down!’ Susana said, with a quivering lip.

  For a moment, silence reigned, broken only by the voice of the young Asian man, with a sweaty forehead and clothes that had been bloated by the morning winds.

  ‘The others are complaining and threatening to leave the castle,’ the young man explained, taking off his dark glasses. Above his head, a large seagull flew like a kite held by an invisible thread. It hovered above them motionless for several seconds with its wings spread.

  ‘Tell them to fuck off with that idea,’ Diego said in a hushed voiced, but with a blunt message that the young Asian understood clearly. His white shirt was beginning to become damp around the neck. ‘Let’s go down to the castle for a bit.’

  ‘Now we’re just going to hide?’ Juan asked, turning towards him and still stroking his beard. ‘With a little effort, I can remember where the sewer ducts are in order to escape, using the same details outlined by Romero…’

  ‘The architect,’ Diego said, interrupting him.

  ‘No, I’ll be the one to take charge,’ Javier said, raising his weapon like a cup won in a tournament.

  ‘I’ll try remembering exactly where the sewer ducts are, while we wait for those creatures to go elsewhere.’ Diego pointed his index finger to the wall that led to the castle perimeter, where the zombies kept moving and moaning, before adding, ‘If they go away.’