Both communities had squatted in the same area and used the same resources. They kept bumping into each other whenever they were out looting shops or stealing crops in abandoned fields. A large cannabis plantation, tended by the White Brotherhood not far from their settlement, aroused considerable confrontation. The main cause of their feud was the antagonistic messianism practiced by both: each had their particular idea of human society which excluded competition. Two totalitarian communities in such a close-knit area couldn't coexist in peace. Cholera didn't conceal his contempt of the sect members' beliefs, and the White Brothers paid in kind, trying to convert his slaves — that is, turn them into their own. Neither side was going to tolerate any of that.
Soon, small brushes with the opposition grew into full-scale military action complete with ambushes, gunfights, kidnapping, public executions, arson and the like. At first, both sides attempted to attract zombies to the opposite side's camp at night but later, they started unleashing zombies specifically captured for that purpose, hoping they would maim and bite as many enemies as they could.
The standoff lasted for about a month with varied success, but then better organization and the overall aggression of the Hospitallers allowed them to gain the upper hand, even despite their inferior numbers. After another month, the White Brothers found themselves barricaded within the spa's walls: the convicts couldn't storm the settlement, but by the same token the settlers couldn't come out. After a few attempts and large losses, the Hospitallers surrounded the spa and put it under siege. Another standoff followed: the Brothers had enough supplies to hold the fort for at least a year while the Hospitallers weren't strong enough to occupy it.
Alex and his friends chose to remain neutral. They hadn't survived the initial massacres only to participate in a guerrilla war where both sides were human and equally repulsive to boot. Also, his squad was too small to affect the standoff either way. Children made up almost half of it, most of them emaciated with stress and starvation. Alex did try to reconcile the adversaries and even acted as a mediator a couple times, but negotiations didn't work. Both clans insisted he joined them, dropping hints about the high cost of wrong decisions and human losses they could inflict.
Not without trepidation, Alex's little team divided its waking hours between watching the military action and listening to the enemies' radio messages. Both sides used standard police radios allowing the group to be privy to their most confidential radio talks. The rest of the time they discussed their predicament: how were they supposed to survive between a rock and a hard place? Discussions led to nothing, the way they normally do; some suggested leaving the area and relocating further on, which was not a safe thing to do at all, others wanted to stay put, hoping that the two enemies had enough on their plates to bother with their little group. But the precarious balance had to come to an end.
One day, Alex heard powerful explosions coming from the direction of the spa. A recce squad reported that the Hospitallers now had company mortars, brand-new, six of them, and all the ammo they needed. Where they had commandeered them, remained a mystery.
The rest was easy. After twenty-four hours of non-stop gunfire and considerable losses, the leaders of the White Brotherhood decided to surrender. During the brief negotiations they secured certain guarantees of life for those of their subjects who chose to surrender as, knowing the Hospitaller lifestyle, many would have opted to die on the spot.
They laid down arms and opened the gates. The Hospitallers entered the fort. Alex had used the same pair of binoculars and sat on that very roof as he watched everything that followed.
Naturally, the guarantees didn't last one minute. The captives were divided into several groups. The bulk of the men were shot straight away; those were the lucky ones.
Tortures and executions lasted throughout the day. Most sectarians were tormented to death, despite their desperate pleas. Hospitallers did spare a few and even allowed them to join their ranks, but they had to pay for that by executing their own comrades. This way, Hospitallers made sure they were bonded by blood and had nowhere to escape.
Alex watched, appalled but unable to interfere. He had to admit he hadn't been fond of the sectarians, but no human being deserved a medieval death like those. He had no idea what happened to Chief and other sect leaders. Alex saw them being escorted into one of the spa buildings, shortly followed by Cholera and his entourage.
Alex peered through his binoculars until darkness fell, but he didn't see anyone exit the building. Most likely, the leaders had shared the fate of their followers and had been tortured to death.
Having savored their victory, the Hospitallers packed all the valuables they could loot, clapped the few remaining captives in chains, set all the buildings on fire and — drums rolling, black flags soaring — headed back to their settlement. Their victory was apparent: they had destroyed, in one day, over a thousand people and now the Order had found itself the sole owner of a vast territory. Or almost, as another settlement still remained safe and untouched. He'd tell me about it later, Alex promised.
He came back home depressed and told his friends everything he'd seen. There was nothing to hope for. The fragile balance had been broken, and it promised no good. Now that the Hospitallers had crushed their archenemy, they would undoubtedly turn on smaller groups of survivors, in order to either exterminate or subjugate them. The impromptu meeting came to a quick and unanimous decision: they had to leave, the sooner the better.
They set the date for their departure in two days, time necessary to break camp. The idea was that the Hospitallers were too busy celebrating their triumph and wouldn't get their act together for another assault operation quite so soon. On the morning of the second day, Alex and four other men, chosen by lot, set off to recce the cop-out route and prepare shelters for the night.
After a several-hour hike direction west, they approached the suburbs of a nearby city. There they chose and inspected a place suitable for a shelter, locked it and placed a few landmines around it. They didn't radio back as the Hospitallers could just as easily have intercepted their radio messages as the group did their own. He didn't want to risk it.
By dinner time, the scouts had come back. As he spoke, Alex's voice faded away; in the dancing fire, his chin was shaking and his fists clenched and opened without him noticing it. He looked like he was going to break into sobs, but he overcame himself, sighed and went on. I kept silent, wary of further disturbing him.
As they approached the settlement, they sensed something was up. It didn't feel right. The place was quiet, even the birds didn't sing. Acrid smoke hung in the air.
Their house was burning, the roaring flames reaching into the sky. A few of their comrades lay in the yard — or rather, whatever was left of their dismembered bodies. Three more men were crucified on the gates and in nearby trees. The others — the children and two women who looked after them — were gone. From the state of the bodies they deduced that the massacre had happened several hours ago. Too late to try and hunt the assailants down.
Alex had lost it. He and his friends had done everything right. They'd had every chance to escape and save the kids. The only thing they'd done wrong was in trying to outsmart their enemy. That's why they didn't make it.
Alex had slumbered on the ground, oblivious of the danger. He remained motionless all night and the most of the following day, holding his head rocking back and forth. His friends tried to take him away, but gave up after his fierce resistance.
When he finally regained his senses, he found them, gloomy and silent, in a nearby house. They had survived — but by the same token, they had to find something to do, because living people can't just sit around, they need to have a job to do even when life itself and any life-related job have lost any sense.
As Alex had entered, his friends were discussing their next step. Nothing to discuss, really, because the only thing they could do was to leave as soon as possible. But, as Alex told me, he must have been in some kind of mental fo
g when he'd declared he was not going to leave. He'd stay and avenge the deaths. Although they didn't have direct evidence, they knew the Hospitallers' modus operandi well enough not to doubt the children's death.
No one dared to argue. He could stay if he so wished. The five of them against a thousand-plus Hospitallers wouldn't stand a chance. After a short discussion, three of his comrades rose and left. That left two: Alex himself and a certain Valentine Ivanovich Frolov, an old-age pensioner, quite fit for his sixty-plus years. As Alex told me, "He's a very special person, but I'll tell you about him later. You'll know why."
Naturally, Valentine Ivanovich didn't have much faith in Alex's revenge project, but he trusted and liked him — as good a reason to stay as any.
As Alex put it, he must have gone bonkers with grief. Together with Valentine, they found themselves a new shelter: a transformer substation in a nearby village. They had barely settled down when Alex set out to plan his revenge mission. The fact that two men couldn't do much against a thousand well-armed people didn't seem to sink in.
He worked steadily and methodically, like a serial killer planning a new attack. He watched the hospital and studied their security, timing guards' movements. He hunted down small Hospitallers groups in the woods and kidnapped or killed those who lagged behind, questioning them first — and his methods of questioning caused the ex-convicts to put a price on his head. Together with Valentine Ivanovich, they had to change shelters often, not shying away from sleeping in the sewage. You had to give it to the old guy: he could see that their death was only a question of time, but still he didn't leave Alex and supported him as much he could.
After several weeks of this fragile standoff, Alex seemed to have come back to his senses. Indeed, if they were killed, they wouldn't avenge anyone. The sheer thought of it offended him. So they lay low and waited until the Hospitallers stopped raiding the area looking for them, hopefully leading them to believe that the vengeful idiots had died or left the premises for good.
Alex used the break to have a proper think. He realized that two men hadn't a chance in hell of destroying a thousand enemies Hollywood-style. Reality had its restrictive side. But so great was his hate that it had to overcome the impossible.
His idea was simple although it did offer some technical difficulties. In order to kill each and every Hospitaller at once, you simply had to poison their water source. To do this, you needed to find this source and supply, choose the right poison and the means of administering it into the source.
This new plan was just as mad as the rest of them, but at least it allowed them to quit their Rambo games, attacking absent-minded stragglers with a pocket knife. Alex renewed his watch of hospital life and its inhabitants' movements, but this time he did so from the safety of the trench that was his and Valentine's current home. There he analyzed the information collected and mulled over his plan.
VII
Sad as it sounds, their plans didn't come to fruition. Time was working against them. One night, Alex and Valentine woke up from a disastrous rumble coming from the direction of the hospital. As Alex put it, it sounded like a tank gun, a few cannons and a great many small arms. There was virtually no time gap between the shots and explosions which meant that they were fired point blank. In between explosions, they could make out the unmistakable whirr of a chopper.
Alex was taking in the sounds of the battle, impatient to join in, but like all survivors, he exercised caution and decided to wait till morning.
At sunrise, he hurried in the direction of the hospital, found a safe vantage point and clung to his binoculars. The concrete fence that surrounded it had been broken in several places; the iron gates, bent and ripped off their hinges, lay right in the middle of the road.
The hospital buildings didn't exist any more. Debris was heaped in their place emanating clouds of black smoke and spreading it over many miles. No sign of life could be detected within the perimeter.
Alex waited a little and stole closer until he reached the gates. No sentries, no ambush — in fact, nothing you'd expect after an impressive shootout like the night before. Finally, he plucked up the courage to penetrate the premises.
There was not a living soul inside — literally. Dead bodies and miscellaneous body parts covered the yard dug up with shell holes and buried knee-high in fragments of bricks and deformed building steel.
Alex had seen such things in the Army before. He searched the premises and checked those buildings still standing; then he left the perimeter and explored the surrounding area, studying the traces of the assaulters and their weapons, and digging into heaps of shell cases that still smelled of gunpowder and cordite. The picture of what had happened was by now pretty clear to him.
A battle it was not. Just an execution, professional and calculated. First, a few snipers had taken down the half-asleep sentries on their Heath Robinson towers. Then an assault group of maybe thirty to forty people had attempted to storm the fence but was spotted and fired upon from the hospital building. The assaulters seemed to have withdrawn without returning fire and laid low in the woods while they called for reinforcements.
Then the chopper arrived and fired a few rockets at the buildings; Alex had found the rockets' fragments in front of the main entrance. He'd seen that type before, and wouldn't forget their sound in a hurry. Basically, at this point everything was finished, but the assaulters didn't seem to think so. After they fired the rockets, a column of what seemed to be five armored vehicles, a tank and a number of lorries carrying infantry, approached the gates. The tank and the AVs drove inside and shelled the few surviving buildings flat. The infantry left the lorries outside the gates, entered the perimeter and finished off everything that still moved; then they returned to the lorries and left. An armored transport followed. The whole operation couldn't have taken more than three hours.
The assaulters couldn't be bothered to bury the bodies. But they didn't leave at once. First they collected all of the Hospitallers' remaining weapons, dumped them onto a strip of tarmac free from shell holes, and ran the tank over it to press it down all nice and flat. The deed left Alex speechless, for it meant that the mysterious fighters didn't need it: apparently they had all the arms they needed. If they could get a chopper, they could get anything! They had also blown up the Soylent factory — not during the shootout but well afterwards, by planting explosives inside the building. Alex took the chance to have a closer look at the Soylent machine, but couldn't see much in the debris.
The execution scenario was apparent. The question was, who'd committed it?
He could have guessed. Alex followed the vehicles' tracks to exactly where he'd thought they would: to the third settlement.
Alex had nicknamed it Castle. Its inhabitants definitely had an aura of mystery about them. Alex had no idea how many they were and what they had in mind as far as the future of the area and other survivors was concerned. Where they'd come from, seemed pretty clear: no one knew the details for sure, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.
When Alex first mentioned Castle, I thought at first it was some Kafkaesque allusion, but the reason for him naming it so proved to be much simpler. The settlement was based on the premises of a VIP sanatorium. Its centerpiece was a neat castle European-style, built over a century ago by some Russian aristocrat of German origin. The castle overlooked a lake inhabited by swans and ducks.
The moment Alex mentioned it, a whole layer of childhood memories came over me. I had known the castle; I used to visit my dying Granddad in the sanatorium. At the time they had, apart from swans, also moose and reindeer in their pens. I remembered feeding them carrots through the mesh fence. They said that when the Iron Curtain had fallen, the reindeer had been left out of their enclosure and they grazed freely in the vast forest nearby.
I also remembered the bronze statue of a boy with a fishing rod, in the forest by the lake; I remembered even a red button on the wall, at the end of the corridor, the button under a sign
that said, "Emergency calls only. To summon the sniper guard, press button." At the time, I hadn't dared press it, therefore remaining in the dark concerning the mysterious staff member, a human (apparently) being with a strange job description, a sniper guard. I remembered the enormous monument of Lenin at rest near the sanatorium's main building — the advent of democracy caused the workers to remove it and take it God knows where. I remembered, as it turned out, lots of things.
Overcome by nostalgia, I forgot to pay attention to Alex's story. When I came to, he'd already finished hypothesizing on Castle's possible origins and inhabitants, and was beginning to tell me about his attempt to penetrate the premises and contact the Castlers. To conceal my embarrassment, I didn't dare ask him repeat his tale, hoping to do it at some later date. Unfortunately, we never got around to it again. The only thing I worked out was that apparently, Castle housed its actual customers: federal big wigs and their families, as well as a considerable military force to keep them out of trouble.
Alex had stumbled into Castle purely accidentally, not long before he'd discovered the Hospital and White Brothers. On one of his outings, he came to a long concrete wall a good five meters high topped with coiled barbed wire. It also boasted an alarm system and even a CCTV both of which, oh miracle of miracles, actually worked. A functioning CCTV system is something out of ordinary in our days.
Alex had made sure he attracted no unwanted attention as he followed the fence at arm's length until he came to the guard house, built in the same pseudo gothic German style. This wasn't an old build, but a brand-new stylization.
The guard house was in fact a massive tower with heavy cast-iron gates. Alex approached it and called out. The muzzle of a flame thrower showed through an opened embrasure. Two men in pseudo-military uniforms appeared on top of the wall, their faces concealed by steel helmets like those used by special forces.
Call Me Human: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel Page 6