Degeneration

by Pardo, David

  More than three months have passed since Beatriz and Sebastian succumbed to infection. I feel like a prisoner in this damn village. I'm lonely and slowly losing my sanity. I feel like I'm drowning. I wake up in night sweats and shaking; I cry inconsolably. In the day I go out to hunt: I find it comforting to blow zombie skulls to bits and splatter their brains all over the ground. I like to get my clothes dirty with zombie blood. I feel good when I kill them, but it's a passing feeling.

  The other afternoon, a married couple was incessantly calling at my door. I observed them from the balcony. They were with a teenager. From the looks of things, they seemed like good people and they were clearly desperate, dirty, and ragged.

  "What do you want?" I asked them when I opened the door, intimidating them with the shotgun but ready to help them.

  "We're not looking for trouble, sir," stuttered the man, with a southern accent. "My name is Cristobal and this is my wife and my son. We need to eat and rest. Afterwards, we'll continue on our way."

  I made them put their weapons in the entryway. They put them in a box that I used to collect vegetables which just happened to be next to the door. Then I invited them to come in and make themselves at home. The woman smiled and asked my permission to take a shower. "Of course," I replied. Later Cristobal and the boy took their turns. While Nieves –that's what she said her name was– prepared some hot food in the kitchen, I took a seat with Cristobal in the living room. After the shower, he seemed a little more relaxed. I offered him a glass of wine, which he didn't turn down.

  "Tell me, Cristobal. What brings you to Navarrés?" I said, showing interest in their lives, as if they mattered to me.

  "We're on our way north via secondary roads," he responded. "We're trying to avoid big cities; they're plagued with those things. The plan is to get to France. We think the army has the situation under control there."

  "And if that's not the case? With an epidemic of these proportions, there is no army that can control it."

  "In any case, we won't be any worse off than we are here," said Cristobal, sadly. "There's nothing left in Spain. The whole country has been leveled by the infection. You should take the sign off the front of the house – nobody's coming to save you."

  "Well, you guys came," I smiled.

  "But you can see us, we don't have anything to offer you," said the man, making the wine dance in his cup and taking a sip. "We've come, dirty and hungry, to your house. By the way, good wine. I hadn't heard of the Enguera Winery."

  "There's always something to offer," I nodded, staring directly into his eyes. "Lately my loneliness has been unbearable, and good company is always nice."

  "That's true. I'll drink to that."

  "Cristobal, you've taken very good care of your wife and your kid," I said, nodding, recognizing him in this way for his bravery. "You've been able to protect them and keep them alive in a hostile and extremely violent world. That says a lot about the type of man you are and I admire you for it."

  "It hasn't been easy. We've seen and done things.... God, I prefer not to even remember. We left Seville when the first zombies began to attack people. I didn't think twice about grabbing Nieves and the boy and getting the hell out of there. From then on, it's been madness. Death and more death. And you, why are you still here? What keeps you in this village?"

  "You'll see soon enough."

  At that moment, Cristobal's eyesight turned blurry. He tried to get up but his legs were unresponsive. The strong sedative I had mixed with his drink had begun to take effect. He looked at me horrified and I looked back with a cold, evil smile. He had fallen into my trap.

  I left Cristobal sleeping on the couch and I went into the kitchen without making a sound. Nieves had her back to me; she was preparing some cans of lentils with roasted peppers that she had found in my cupboard. I put her to sleep hitting her in the head with a frying pan. I checked her pulse and injected her with a dose of pig tranquilizer, I didn't want any surprises. Later, I shut off the stove and went upstairs. The boy had finished showering and he was snooping around in Sebastian's room, curiously poking around through his things. I remained quiet a moment, waiting in the doorframe, watching him. He got nervous when he saw me, but I flashed him a forced smile to calm him down.

  "I'm sorry, sir," he said, afraid, "I don't mean to be a bother."

  "Don't worry," I smiled again, this time kindly. "How old are you, boy?"

  "Fifteen," he responded. "Do you have children?"

  "I had one... I have one. But it's been a while since he's played with his videogames; he's a little under the weather."

  "Can I...?" asked the boy, shyly pointing at the console. He felt more comfortable.

  "Of course," I nodded as I sat next to him, "your parents are preparing dinner, we can play a game together."

  Cristobal's son went over to the shelf to get the game controllers. His big mistake was turning his back to me. Even if he had stayed alert so as not to make that mistake, nothing would have changed his destiny. I punched him hard in the ear and he dropped like lead to the floor, taking with him the monitor and a few game boxes. My pulse quickened. I grabbed the boy by the arm, dragged him downstairs, and sat him on the couch, resting his head on his father's shoulder. "What a sweet picture," I thought. I filled the syringe with tranquilizer again –this time watching the dose, I didn't want to kill the boy– and I injected him in the neck.

  I returned to the kitchen and a small puddle of blood alerted me that Nieves had a cut, nothing serious. I looked determinedly at her figure and felt desire for her: I imagined a hard ass under those tight-fitting pants. Nieves was an attractive woman and I felt very alone, too alone, more than any sane man could take. I unbuttoned her pants and pulled them down with difficulty to her knees. I caressed her butt and pushed her panties to one side, leaving her genitals visible. Next, I licked my fingers and delicately introduced them into her vagina: it was dry, but my whole body shook. I was filled with desire. My balls were about to explode and I didn't think twice about getting naked. I had never felt my penis as hard as that day. I lay down at her side, took her by the hair, and vigorously entered her; all the while passing my tongue over her neck, licking the blood that fell from the open wound on her head. I noticed that her vagina got moist, but it wasn't the normal fluid produced by pleasurable sex; instead, it was the blood that forms from vaginal tear during a brutal rape. "What had I become?" That's when, as much as it hurt, I understood Rico, J.R. and Ricard: there wasn't room in that hostile environment for morals and ethics. Nor was their room for human integrity. That's when I understood Ricard's words. And, naked, contemplating with disgust Nieves' bloody genitals, I knew that all was lost.

  Without a speck of remorse, I dressed the woman again and grabbed her by the arm. I dragged her to the yard, leaving a small trail of blood that crossed the living room as I went.

  It was getting dark and the last rays of sunlight shyly fell upon the lawn and garden, creating a beautiful contrast of orange colors. I chained the woman to one of the stone benches. Next, I did the same with Cristobal and the boy. I pulled hard on the chains, making sure that they were tight, and put two padlocks on them. Try as they might, they wouldn't be able to get out of my metal spider's web.

  I went back to the kitchen and finished heating up the lentils. I had worked up an appetite rending that family unconscious. I poured the contents of the frying pan onto a plate and, still naked and with Nieves' blood on my penis, I sat on the couch to compulsively scarf down the food.

  I feed them. I know that I'm not acting correctly, but I can't stand to see them hungry. It's not easy and I have regrets. Two days after the fateful night on which the zombies bit Beatriz and Sebastian, I returned to Justiniano's house. I didn't find any bodies there and, so, I guessed that they had come back to life. The reason for my visit was to take the sign that hung from the front of the house. I pulled it down in one fell swoop, folded it, and put it in the car to later hang it on my townhouse. Cristobal and his family
were the second group of people who passed by my house attracted by the message written on the sign: S.O.S. - PEOPLE ARE HERE. First it was a young couple: he said he was a lawyer and she was a teacher. I chained them up in the garden and immediately opened the garage door. Beatriz and Sebastian, or whatever they had become, destroyed the bodies of those unfortunate souls bit by bit. I watched the scene unfold from the living room, protected behind the glass. When there was no longer flesh or guts to gnaw at, Beatriz came over to the window while Sebastian continued rummaging through the man's stomach. The boy seemed lost, confused. Beatriz threateningly flashed her blackened teeth at me while letting out a terrifying growl. She then vomited bits of blood on the glass, which made me take a step back. If my heart hadn’t already been destroyed, that day it finished breaking. After witnessing that grotesque scene, I was several nights without sleeping.

  "Let us go, you damn son of a bitch!" I head a cry that came from the yard. Cristobal was awake.

  I went outside with an air of vanity, showing off my Browning and letting them know who was in charge. Nieves sobbed, the boy was still unconscious, and Cristobal twisted and turned as if he were an insane man trying to escape from a straitjacket.

  I got down on my haunches in front of him and put my face near his. I looked straight into his eyes. It was March and the nights were cold, but that poor man was sweating as if he had just run a marathon.

  "Are you afraid?" I whispered. "I can smell your fear. I see it in your eyes."

  "Do whatever you want with me, but let them go," he begged, asking for mercy for his family.

  "You're so generous," I said as I stood up. "Without you, they'll die out there. No, tonight you'll all die together here."

  Nieves sobbed without saying a word. Her hair and clothing were bloody from the head wound. She was so afraid that she didn't feel the pain of her torn vagina.

  "Come on, man, you must have a little humanity left in you," Cristobal appealed to morals and ethics. Humble psychology, that type of comment no longer worked on me. I couldn't help but smile, and I let out a perverse laugh.

  "Humanity? There are no human beings left in this world. Those that have survived the epidemic have become monsters," I responded seriously, looking towards the garage. "You, I, them.... There are no heroes in this story, only victims and villains."

  Suddenly, a strong knock made the garage door sound like thunder. Beatriz and Sebastian had sensed the fresh meat and were hungry. A shocking grunt made Nieves' face become distorted. Cristobal began to move again, trying to free himself from the chains.

  "My God! My God!" she shouted, while a reddish stain began to seep through her pants. It was urine mixed with blood.

  "What do you have in there!?" exclaimed Cristobal, terrorized. "Let us go, you fucking lunatic! What the hell do you have in there?"

  Just then, the boy started to wake up.

  "Dad," he stuttered, "what's going on?"

  In the bottom of my being there was still a shred of that man who enjoyed a quiet life in the village, before the world fell out from beneath our feet and the dead came back to life. I hit the boy hard with the stock of the shotgun, physically damaging his face and thus freeing him from suffering and rendering him unconscious again.

  "You son of a bitch! I'm going to kill you!" shouted Cristobal, as if he were possessed. "I'll kill you, you ass!"

  "Believe me, he's better off that way."

  And, without putting the inevitable off any longer, I went to the garage door and let Beatriz and Sebastian out. Without looking back, I ran to the living room and took a seat on the couch. From there, I watched, terrorized, as my wife and my son mercilessly ripped the bodies of those poor souls apart with their ravaging teeth. All the while, my victims shouted with agony and begged, wasting their last breaths of life. In just a few moments, the lawn was covered in guts and blood, everything was tainted red.

  I stood motionless for a long time, lost in thought. Time stopped for me, five long minutes felt like an eternity. I waited impatiently for my turn to come. I had left the big window open, intending to correct my destiny. I wanted to right my wrongs. I would never be able to kill my family, but I had finally found a way to stop my suffering; to end my loneliness.

  Beatriz came into the house and walked up to me. She was dragging her feet and blood, mixed with that repulsive, black liquid was dripping from her chin. I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh. The living room was flooded by the horrible smell of decomposition that Beatriz's body left off and, when she was just a few inches away from me, her breath hit my nose with such strength that I thought I would vomit. The pain that I felt with the first bite in the neck was indescribable: I felt my skin and muscles stretching until they were ripped off at the roots while the warm blood flowed down my body, leaving the couch stained with the color of death.

  "I love you, my dear. I love you both..." I stuttered, saddened by the pain. One second bite in the arm, this time less painful, and Beatriz stopped eating. Then she left. Maybe she understood that I wasn't food and she was trying to infect me so that I could be with them, or maybe her intention was to condemn me. For me it was a relief, for her it could have been revenge.

  The blood of my wounds dried up fast and they stopped festering. I began to have a strong headache, maybe because of the disproportionate rise in my body temperature. I started to sweat: it was a cold sweat, the sweat that comes before death. I fell asleep, or at least that's the impression I had. I didn't see my life flash before my eyes, nor was there a blinding, white light at the end of the tunnel; I just closed my eyes and let my body go. An hour later, I got up from the couch with a strange, empty feeling inside.

  I move around with primitive instincts. I don't have a sense of time and I'm hungry. The headache has come back, permanently, and now it's my lifelong partner. I'm a living dead; you know my story but not my name. I roam the house, trying to find a way out, but my uncoordinated, numb hands are only capable of knocking against the doors and windows. I have moments of clarity: I recognize my family, I know that I am with them and that puts my mind at ease, it makes me feel better. Later my sight blurs again, the intense pain comes back and I feel as if something were eating away at my stomach, scratching my intestines cruelly, and destroying my innards. Now I understand the suffering of Beatriz and Sebastian and I understand that my selfishness and my cowardliness are what eat away at me inside. I cling to the hope that a stranger bursts through the door one day to blow off our heads. I hope he gives us death to right the horrible wrongs that I have done. I have to see my family at peace. Only then may I rest in peace.

  THE END

  Other titles by the author:

  Pueblo de Sombras I (La Chica del Lago) http://www.amazon.es/Pueblo-Sombras-Chica-Lago-ebook/dp/B007A6V2S6