To spare my feelings, Alex cleaned the hare out of my sight on the other end of the roof. Out of the lean-to, he produced a bundle of firewood and laid it out on a thick sheet of iron to protect the roof from damage. Like a magician, he produced a bottle of wine and some plastic cups out of some crate or other.
His practicality amazed me. When I'd had a better look around, I discovered many things that made a survivor's life comfortable. A barbecue, a hammock, a stack of crates and even a telescope sat under a tarpaulin lean-to that protected them from the rain. I'd spent too much time hiding in holes and cellars like a wild animal and had forgotten all those life's little pleasures. Even more so as — as I found out later — it was only a temporary outlook, not the main shelter. My respect for Alex grew by the minute.
While we were thus busy — him cooking, me having a look around — it got dark. He said it was safe to start the fire now as no one was going to see the smoke from below. Having removed two of the hare's legs for his "roommates", as he called them, my kind host poured us some wine and invited me to join him by the fire. He commended me on my hunting idea but suggested I used traps in the future in order not to attract unwanted attention. I agreed although I had no idea how to make a trap and even what it was supposed to look like. It wasn't relevant, anyway: the screams of the agonizing hare were still too vivid to ever consider hunting anything again.
While the meat was roasting, we drank wine and talked. Alex asked me to tell him about myself and I felt it necessary to oblige. I shared most of my experiences with him keeping very little to myself: my life before the epidemic, my family's disappearance and all my life afterwards.
I did omit one detail, though. I didn't tell him about my current shelter. Not that I didn't trust the man, but I didn't know how the events were going to unfold from there and I wanted to have a safe base as a reserve I could trust. Apart from this little ambiguity, I was perfectly open with him.
I don't think I told him anything he didn't know before: like myself, he must have heard similar stories many times. But he, in his turn, told me many interesting things about the social life in the area, if I may call it so.
Using his special brand of humor, he clued me in on the detailed lay of the land, of the history of the local communities, of the survivors who'd created them, and of his own tribulations.
Before the disaster, Alex used to be in the military. He'd retired seven years before the pandemic began. He had no family: his wife had walked out on him, fed up with the constant struggle to make ends meet as well as — according to him — the nature of his service. His unit belonged to the special forces which meant dangerous assignments, constant restlessness and insecurity. Alex didn't blame her; optimist that he was, he still hoped to find his true love one day.
His ex-commander and friend, who'd retired before him, was by then head of security for a large oil corporation. He offered Alex to join them, and my friend rose quickly through the ranks until he became the personal bodyguard to the company president. He gave me his boss's name; I thought I'd heard it on TV once or twice, but apart from that, it didn't ring any bells. I'd never been privy to the movers and shakers' circles, and even if I had, the events of the last year had rubbed most of the past life out of my memory.
Alex's post allowed him to rub shoulders with the elite, and I got the impression that he liked it. His professionalism and quick thinking coupled with geniality and good social skills guaranteed him a stable future. His boss's shadow, he never left him even during the most confidential phone talks, becoming a natural insider and used his new knowledge to his advantage. Alex pulled off a few madly successful deals with the company's shares that left him a very wealthy man indeed. He bought himself his dream of a lifetime, a Mercedes E-class, silvery-gray, which is probably still safe and unharmed, sitting in some underground garage, separated from his proud owner by some twenty-five miles — and a few million zombies.
"The battery must be dead by now," sighed Alex. His life had finally showed some promise allowing for some grand plans when, just as his lifestyle was peaking, disaster struck.
His boss, influential and well-connected, had access to some confidential information so he had a better and fuller idea of what was going on than most people in the street. As his confidant, Alex knew most of what his employer did, so he realized the seriousness of what was going on. The president was scared shitless of the epidemic and hurriedly prepared an escape scenario to his plan B residency deep in the Altai mountains. Alex had never been there.
That day, it was Alex's shift. The boss and his family were in their country home — naturally, Alex followed them around the place. He helped them to load valuables into a corporate chopper, parked on the lawn by the house. Everybody hurried to pack the luggage — there was too much of it. Once they were finally safely on board the chopper — the boss himself, his wife, two kids and a mountain of suitcases and boxes — it turned out that there wasn't enough place for Alex inside. Theoretically, they could have thrown out a box or two and that would be enough for him to fit inside, but apparently, the boss had no shortage of bodyguards where he was going. The valuables, on the other hand, must have been irreplaceable — literally.
What exactly was in the suitcases, Alex didn't know. Maybe, gold, but it could also be some company paperwork. Whatever it was, it caused a rather unpleasant dilemma. All the rules and sensibilities of the bygone world understandably didn't apply any more. The boss was rather apologetic about it: he said he'd choose Alex over the pilot any day, but unfortunately, Alex couldn't fly a chopper, otherwise they'd have left the pilot and taken Alex along. Blah blah. Alex had enough weapons on him to easily solve the dilemma any way he saw fit, but he just couldn't be bothered. He let them go unharmed. Once the chopper took off, Alex unplugged his radio, threw it in the pool and entered the house that now belonged to him alone. The new era started.
In the meantime, the meat was done. I still felt bad about killing the poor little bugger but the smell of the roast quickly cheered me up. We opened another bottle of wine. Alex even cooked some veg and baked a few potatoes in the dying coals. Instead of salt, we used canned seaweed — a Russian supermarket staple. When I asked him where he'd got all those delicacies from, Alex pointed in the direction of the motorway. I remembered that earlier that day, I noticed there the outline of a Carrefour mall. Next to it, from what I remembered, was a poultry farm — had been, that is. I'd meant to check it out but now the food served itself to me without any effort on my part.
Alex poured another glass and went on. An active and not too sentimental person, he hadn't buried himself in his grief, but tried to get ready for the bad times once it became apparent they were about to arrive. He wasn't alone: the few houses nearby sheltered a few dozen people like himself: landlords and their families as well as abandoned staff: house help, chauffeurs, gardeners, nannies and the like. He even met a chef, a find he was eternally grateful for, because the man worked wonders with food, even considering constant shortages — unfortunately, he died soon afterwards. Together, they formed some semblance of a vigilante group although not everybody agreed to join: some chose to survive on their own.
Their first problems arrived as a column of city fugitives entered town, scared witless. Their stories defied reason; they were all madness and agony; now they sound matter-of-fact, but at the time, they astonished everyone. Some of the vigilantes succumbed to the panic and chose to leave with the endless crowds. Alex reasoned that leaving was pointless because sooner or later, the road would lead them to another city, albeit smaller. Most likely, it had its own exodus, so the best thing would be to sit it out. Man, was he right.
The stream of fugitives didn't thin out. They were in such a hurry to escape that they didn't make any attempt at looting. Only occasionally, they'd humbly ask for some water, food or medications.
A few days later, zombies came.
They came too quickly, considering their absence of reason and purpose. It's possible that so
me of the fugitives had been infected and hadn't mutated at once. When the virus — or whatever it was that had triggered the epidemic — started to work, it turned people into bloodthirsty monsters who attacked those walking next to them in the column, attempting to tear them apart and devour their still-living bodies. A panic would start, often turning into a stampede as the crowd tried to escape while the dead yet uneaten bodies would rise and in their turn attack the survivors. Business as usual, basically. Alex likened it to a grenade explosion on an overcrowded subway train. I can't speak for myself — thank God I've never witnessed anything like it — but I decided not to challenge his story.
By then, the little squad had had a properly fortified house. They could take their pick from any of the abandoned mansions, and their choice had fallen on the one that must have belonged to a certified paranoiac who hadn't scrimped on barbed-wire fence, barred doors and windows, bolts and cellars. In the short time they still had, the self-appointed militia barricaded entrances with whatever was lying around: before, the mansion used to be the laughingstock of the neighborhood, but now everybody remembered the former landlord with gratitude. They'd armed themselves in a similar fashion: mainly with hunting guns, axes, even scythes and other potentially deadly agricultural tools.
To complicate things even further, just as the bloodshed started, a whole busful of children stormed the premises, headed by their teachers. They were no use when it came to fighting, of course, and besides, as it later turned out, there were some infected among them.
Alex poured us another drink. He was shaking. All this reminiscing didn't do him any good. I'll spare you any further details. I hadn't seen anything like what he was trying to tell me: I'd spent all those months alone and in hiding while he fought back, a fight of epic proportions when their little squad had to confront dozens and sometimes over a hundred living dead at any given time. Unlike myself, they had nowhere to run and had to defend themselves and their lives. His stories explained all those skeletons and mummified bodies heaping up next to some of the houses, their floors covered with a layer of used shell cases.
After a few days, the quantities of the zombies besieging their house had started to dwindle. Now the defenders could finally take a breath, count their losses and help the wounded; the barricades, too, needed patching up. But once the fighting stopped, one of the bitten children mutated and attacked his schoolmates. That accident nearly cost them their lives but they managed to restrain the offender. By then, everybody started to understand the ways the infection could be passed on, so the little squad force-checked everyone and attempted to evict or lock up all the bitten ones, threatening to destroy their bodies. By then, the sick ones almost outnumbered the living, so the confrontation led to a fight that cost the defenders ten more lives. The survivors themselves had to leave and take cover in another house; a few days later they returned in order to destroy their former comrades who by then had lost their human self. After that, a new wave of zombies had arrived, and the nightmare repeated itself.
I listened to his tale in breathless astonishment. Alex quoted casualty numbers. The numbers of the house defenders fluctuated, partly because of constant losses, partly because of the influx of new fighters who joined them as they had no other place to escape to. To attract more of them, Alex and his friends had made a large sign out of a sheet stretched over the roof: "Here Are The Living!" For the lack of paint, they wrote the words with blood. They opened the attic windows and set up speakers from an ancient stereo fed from a generator that played war-time songs day and night: the music was Alex's choice and he didn't let anyone change the record. Surprisingly, I had little problem visualizing the surreal atmosphere. The songs, too, attracted survivors but when the diesel for the generator started to run low, they had to abandon their music practice.
Talking about casualties. Since the fall of last year they'd had a hundred and twenty-nine dead, in the house and in the surrounding area; at its highest, their little squad counted sixty-two fighters. Now there were three left, counting Alex, although recently, another two had joined them. Alex darkened when he spoke about them.
In his opinion, they could have avoided such high casualty numbers, had they once and for all agreed on their leaders. I suggested that such fatal disagreement was quite understandable: the fighters had come from different areas of the country, they didn't know each other; they trusted no one; their mutual suspicions and fears were further aggravated by the mental disorders that every survivor seemed to suffer from.
Alex agreed to some of it, but not all: he seemed to believe that inability to come to an agreement was a typical trait of our Russian nation, whatever the cause — whether it's the need to massage a few egos of those in the corporate environment, or physical survival among the hordes of the living dead.
Having realized that, he stopped taking part in exhausting but fruitless meetings. Getting enough sleep was much more important for him. He never offered himself as their leader, considering it a useless task, but if a meeting did vote in his favor, he wouldn't have said no.
The little squad — twenty-three strong, half of them children — survived the winter and even moved house. Staying in the old one was like living in a cemetery. In the back yard, three common graves were filled to the brim with bodies, the floors, walls and the earth around were drenched in blood. Zombies' bodies couldn't be buried, so they burned them on large woodpiles soaked in kerosene, stinking the whole neighborhood out.
In springtime, at first they thought the worst was over. The children needed special attention, though. They had become the group's pride and joy: Alex himself used to call the kids his "brood of ducklings" as they followed their self-appointed father everywhere.
Zombies' attacks were getting more and more rare. The fighters finally had a chance to come out and explore the area. They needed to do so pretty quickly, too, because their food stocks and ammo were running low.
The men divided into two groups: one stayed behind to protect the women and children while the other set out on their recce trips. One of the raids resulted in what at first they believed to be good news: the scouts had stumbled upon a large group of survivors. Their joy was a bit premature to say the least.
Here I have to warn you that Alex's further tale made me feel embarrassed of my human roots. I thought I'd seen it all and that you had to go some to surprise me with scenes of gory cruelty. God was I wrong. I must point out to you now that I had to take Alex's word for everything that I'm about to tell you, and that I didn't witness any of it. I had no reason not to trust what he said though; in the short time we two spent together, not once did he offer me grounds to suspect him of bending the truth — neither in his words nor actions, and that applies to the story that follows. I didn't add to it anything of my own making. I'm dying; I can't even hold a pen properly; writing this diary costs my body dearly, and I assure my unknown reader that I wouldn't waste my last remaining bits of strength on slandering people I'd never even seen nor known their names and who are long dead... yes, dead they all are by now, each and every one of them.
Having warned the reader about a few unpleasant minutes that lie ahead, and having offered whatever meager proof I have that I'm not making it all up, I proceed. Just one last word of warning: you would be wise if you skip this little chapter in order not to lose the remaining faith in human nature. The only thing that can, to a degree, justify the existence of our species is the fact that very few of its specimens have survived, and by far not the best of them. This explains, to a degree, what Alex told me that night.
V
Their first meeting had bred hope and good cheer. The worst seemed to be over: the remaining survivors would unite in order to bring some semblance of order into the world, if restoring it to its past glory wasn't on the cards yet. And unite they did... in a particular way that bred more trouble.
That little became clear when their scouts met with people from a yet another community. It turned out that the two groups, each abo
ut a thousand strong, fought a constant and desperate feud with each other. Both leaders sought alliance with Alex's group and argued each in their own favor, not scrupling to badmouth their opponents and tell blood-curdling stories of their crimes and cruelty. Separating truth from fiction in their stories without incurring displeasure by either group was a job and a half, as both exercised the good old principle, He that is not with us is against us. Both camps had high turnover rates, as people were constantly on the run to either join the opposition or to simply escape the pointless vendetta. Fugitives' stories helped Alex to see relatively well how the ground lay.
The first community was more or less straightforward. It consisted mainly of ex-convicts and those of their guards who'd chosen to join them. Most criminals had sat out the most dangerous first months in prison where their life was more or less unchanged — even after they rioted and took over the place. Left without reinforcements, the guards chose to accept the new rules of the game. Neither the inmates nor the screws dared leave the grounds, anyway. When prison food stocks start to dwindle, the convicts decided to come out and force their way to some other place safe enough to sit out the disaster.
Actually, "decided" isn't the right word. Only one person had the right to decide, a colorful character of whom only his prison nickname remains, which was Cholera. I'll talk in some detail about him later, not because he deserves to be remembered or because he did anything worth mentioning, even if by virtue of his cruelty alone. But he seems to be the first person who developed immunity to the zombie virus. That was actually how he got his new nickname: his real name remains unknown.
When they left the safety of the prison walls, they found themselves surrounded by thousands of the living dead. I remembered the lyrics from a ballad I'd once known, "We were seven brave men against their hundred swords". Those who made it through alive deserved to be called lucky. The prison was situated in an industrial zone out of town so quite a few of them survived without getting infected. The rest of the gang made it out of town thanks to their own quick wits, so typical of criminal minds: they formed a column of hastily armored coaches headed by a bulldozer that wiped everything and everyone out of their way. Their luck was further stretched by the fact that they — not knowing much about the epidemic to begin with — travelled at daytime when most zombies reposed.
Call Me Human: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel Page 4