Olek watched the first person to sit back up after dying with no emotion. If he was honest, he expected it. The horror of 2014 left him little hope that there could be an escape to happiness and peace. He gauged that the death of his friends would be the least price he would pay, and he was right.
A higher price was due.
Adam had been a willowy man in life. The same in death, Olek supposed. Tall and thin with long hair fashionable in the cities and popular with women in college. His face had been carved by God to be long and drawn, like a Norseman on the prow of a Viking ship.
Olek hadn't set foot on a Viking ship, nor had he gone to college. His family's restaurant didn't allow for it, not that he had bitterness about the lost opportunity. He knew his role, and had an uncomplicated joy in that certainty.
Adam died from the flu with haste. They had no medicines to slow its invasion. Like the others Olek watched after he coughed and spat, grew dark in skin and mood, his eyes became bloody and threaded, and eventually he shivered his way to stillness, and his lungs stopped. It didn't help that the men had been living in a garage with a hole in the roof large enough to climb out of that had no heat. Adam lasted perhaps twelve hours after the bruising started in earnest, and within minutes, he sat up as if he'd caught his second wind.
And in a way, he had.
Sergei and Osip stood up from their squatted places at the fire beneath the hole in the roof and clapped, whooping and hollering in shushed voices, happy to see their friend move again. Osip hobbled over to Adam, who sat on the cold concrete floor with nothing but a blanket below to provide comfort. The shorter, darker man with the shaved head dropped to a knee beside the sick Adam with a cup of tepid water in hand.
"Osip, please be careful," Olek had said. He'd known before it happened what came. Maybe it was paranoia. Maybe it was wisdom.
Adam opened his mouth as if to say something to Osip--perhaps to thank him--but instead the man with the long hair clamped his mouth down on his friend's hand, severing two fingers and sending the bowl of precious battlefront water clattering to the floor. Osip screamed and Adam chewed.
Olek stood, paralyzed, stiff as a Soviet-era statute and just as useful. Sergei jumped to Osip's aid as Adam's mouth worked against the bones in the severed fingers. Blood trickled from his emotionless mouth and when whatever left inside Adam concluded the bones were inedible, the severed fingers covered in torn and chewed skin and tendon fell from his mouth and his bloodshot eyes turned back to the crimson coated hand of Osip. He crawled away from the tattered blanket, his mouth slavering and his lungs grunting like the Devil's bellows.
Adam bit into Osip's shin just below the knee. His pants offered little to no resistance and his skin only slightly more. Adam tore a bite of Osip free and swallowed it without chewing. Osip screamed again as Sergei tried to yank him away, dragging him by the armpits. Adam grabbed the fleeing foot of the soldier and sank his teeth again into the pink, meaty offering. Another hunk of skin and muscle came free at the ankle, and Osip's screams maddened.
Olek's hands had worked of their own accord. His feet rooted in place as one friend killed another his right hand had somehow picked up his AK-74, charged the weapon, and flicked the safety down. Sense returned to his fingertips and he realized that he alone in the garage had the power to help. Perhaps it was his destiny to there. Perhaps bad luck. Osip had no weapon in his mindless hands and Sergei was the same. Their guns were propped against a wooden table on the other wall.
Olek shouldered his weapon--had the patience to wait for a clear shot--and then added to the chaos by ripping off a short burst of fire at Adam's chest. Inside the confines of the garage the gunfire rattled ears and vibrated chests. It did more to Adam. The tiny bullets pierced his throat, jaw and chest and tore out the back, coating his dirty blankets in a spray of dark blood mixed with bits of minced flesh. As if he had been a puppet with the hand yanked out Adam's body flattened on its face, no longer a threat to anyone. Olek had been lucky; his shots had pierced the spinal cord.
Osip succumbed within minutes. The infection worked like the ponderous flu when caught like a normal bug, but when it jumped via bite… It worked more like a forest fire, ravenous and hungry, leaving its fuel a burnt-out husk just like the dead it made.
As Sergei cried and comforted the dying Osip, Olek grabbed all his things, grabbed a few things that belonged to Adam, and escaped the garage. He left Sergei to decide how to live his life, and how to end Osip's.
Olek had to get home to mother, father, and younger brother.
This evening he returned only to younger brother.
***
"Thank you," Aleksi whispered in the darkened kitchen.
"You're welcome," Olek said, spooning out another mouthful of canned sauerkraut for his brother, his ward. He had cooked the contents of the can by opening it and setting it atop a tiny metal rack the size of his closed fist above a small blue flame. The little silver container with its odd flammable gel warmed the cabbage adequately, and made no smoke. No smoke was good. Smoke attracted survivors with empty stomachs and loaded guns.
Olek and Aleksi had relocated to their father's restaurant not long after his return to Slavutych. Despite his mad rush on foot, then in a stolen car to get back home Olek had lost the race to see his parents alive again. Their father succumbed to sickness at the same time Adam had, and their mother left the family apartment to get food only to return with empty bags and a belly pierced three times by a knife. Aleksi told Olek of how she arranged all the food for him to eat; made him gather water in every container that could hold it, then locked herself in the bathroom for her inevitable death. They had ignored her moaning, and the steady thumping of her balled fists against the weakening door to embrace. Olek had given her peace shortly after, then the boys sat and pretended like they didn't want to cry. That day the boy inside Olek died, leaving behind a bitter and scarred young man who wanted nothing more than to protect his little brother.
Now, the Kosh brothers slept on the tile floor of their ransacked restaurant, locked behind their own flimsy door in the storeroom every night, with its barren shelves, and the smell of growing mold. It wouldn't do much longer, and Olek knew they had to move.
"How far did you have to go?" Aleksi asked before he put the bite of sauerkraut in his mouth and chewed.
"All the way to Central Square and a bit beyond. I made it up to the fifth floor of a bombed-out apartment. Grabbed the cans out of a backpack on a dead woman's body." Olek used a grimy finger to scrape out the last sad bits of translucent cabbage. He sucked the digit dry, savoring the tart and sour flavor while ignoring the grit of the filth.
"Was it dangerous?" Aleksi asked with wide, innocent eyes. Olek had tried to shield the smaller version of himself from the dangers of a decrepit, crumbling world filled with threats in every direction and the result had been the little boy trying to live vicariously through his older brother's stories.
Olek knew he walked a thin line. On one side sat a satisfied, entertained, cautious little boy with a dirty face and hair that needed cutting. On the other was a disappointed, curious boy who snuck out at every opportunity to brave the world that he falsely knew to be a playground. "Yes. I saw a few of the infected dead wandering. Fewer and fewer every time I go out. A few living. Armed, hungry. Many dogs again. They scare me the most."
"Why do dogs scare you?" Aleksi asked as he licked his small bowl until the porcelain nearly came off on his tongue like white paint.
"They have twice as many legs, and run twice as fast as me for one," Olek said, ruffling his brother's sooty brown hair.
"I could outrun them," Aleksi said, sure of himself.
"Oh yes? What if you couldn't? What if they outran you? What then little brother?" Olek sat back and leaned against the metal leg of an old table. It squeaked in protest.
"I would hide, or climb a tree," the boy said.
"And how long do you think the dogs would wait at the bottom of that tree for you to fall d
own? Or get thirsty? Hmm? Are you more patient than a hungry dog watching a meal?"
"So I wouldn't climb a tree. I would hide."
"You can hide how you smell?" Olek sniffed his brother. The truth of the matter was he stunk. They both stunk. "Because a dog will smell you out of nearly any place you try and go to ground. Then it will dig you up and eat you, just like the dead people. You must think like a man now, as this is a man's world. There is no place for boys. It is dangerous my little brother, but soon we will go together."
Aleksi sprouted at the statement like a plant trying to catch a fleeting ray of sunshine. "Where will we go?"
"South. Outside of the city, where it is more rural. We will grow our own food, build fences and stay safe. We'll run fast, and low, and stay out of the light. We will go in the dark at night. When we get there we will find pretty women to make handsome Kosh babies with, and we'll live long and happy lives. We will be fat. Fat and happy."
Olek watched as Aleksi's mouth widened, revealing teeth that needed brushing worse than the hair that needed washing. "I'd like that. I want to be fat. I would kill for fresh beets Olek. I would."
Olek grinned and closed his eyes. He imagined his mother's roasted beets and how they would melt in your mouth, dissolving into pure savory goodness. He caught himself salivating and shook the memory away before his stomach realized he wanted more food. "I would too, little brother of mine. I think it might be easier to grow them. Maybe it will take longer, but in the end a grown beet weighs lighter on the conscience than one you've killed for."
Aleksi nodded in the light of the blue flame. "When?"
"Soon." Olek rested a small cup of tin foil over the blue light, and the kitchen sank into blackness.
***
Olek went out the next two days to scavenge for food. He strayed further and further away with every cautious trip and came back with less and less. The competition in the ruined city had become too fierce, and the supplies too sparse. It was time to leave.
He made a simple plan on paper and showed it to Aleksi as they shared a jar of old pickles, and ate a meager rabbit Olek caught in a snare at a small park not too far from where the restaurant was. They ate it raw for fear of the fire needed to roast it.
Once Olek was sure Aleksi knew exactly what to do as they departed the city they resolved to try and leave the next night, and they did.
***
The brothers kneeled at the corner of the block where the restaurant was. The blackened city was illuminated by the rumbling glow of moonlight clouds. Silence prevailed. "Shhh. The dogs sleep now," Olek said in a whisper, pointing at a distant pile of garbage. "Can you see?"
Aleksi squinted and looked. "No. I see garbage."
"Look closer. Right at the bottom where the boxes are? You see those lumps on the ground?"
Aleksi perked up. "Those are dogs? I can hardly see them. You have such good eyes."
Perhaps he needs glasses? Where will I get him glasses? "Yes I do. Now walk slow, and stay five steps behind me at all times. Careful where you step. Do not kick things by accident or on purpose. If there is shooting you get down and behind something sturdy. A wall, concrete. Not a car door okay?"
"Yes, Olek," Aleksi said.
The elder brother pushed off from the corner of the building and headed south and west towards the river that marked the border with Belarus. In the river lands there, the Kosh boys would make their home.
***
Olek held his left hand up in a fist and dropped into a crouch as fast as falling rain. Aleksi mirrored him as a little brother ought.
They had moved without resistance in the middle of the night for maybe three hour. Five steps at a time using every bit of cover available. Olek had steered them clear of every upper floor apartment with firelight, every snaking ribbon of smoke and every strange noise that he couldn't be sure was a natural and harmless sound of the world. Before the war, before the sickness, and before the dead Olek and Aleksi could've made the same walk in minutes, but now…
They were stopped again, with a handful of the dead standing still at the edge of the overpass that crossed the rails that marked the very edge of the city. Perhaps eight of the dead stood, bent, broken and crooked in the hollow light of the overcast night sky. He could see missing limb, torn clothes and old stains of darkened blood. Patches of ripped out air and shredded flesh were the badges they wore for the death they suffered. Olek could smell the stench of a fresh kill wafting to his nose on the breeze, and knew they had just fed. Someone had just died.
He motioned for his little brother to join him at the guardrail.
"How many?" Aleksi asked in a voice that seemed scared to work.
Olek counted patiently. "Seven. No, another stood up, eight."
Aleksi whined. "What do we do? We need to get across there right?"
"Yes," Olek said, patting his brother on the back. "And we will, but we must avoid them. We will go under, across the rails out of their sight."
"Go back some? Climb the fences? Isn't there big curls of barbed wire? Won't we get cut?"
Shit. He is right. He is too young to do this, but he must. "Yes. But we can cut the wire with the pliers I have. Or cut a hole in the fence. We cannot fight them. It'll cause too much noise. We will-" Olek stopped as a strange figure appeared out of the forested gloom on the far side of the overpass.
Broad of shoulder and lengthy in its step the figure could only be a man. A large man no less, covered in what the moonlight showed to be hides and furs. Hair sprouted from the top of the strange person's head like the quills of a comic book porcupine and beard sank downward in the same way. The figure staggered drunkenly, but was too deliberate to fool Olek. This act was a dance designed to delude the dead.
The figure dragged a bag at his feet, filled with something the size of a human torso, maybe larger.
"Who is that?" Aleksi asked even quieter now.
"A madman. A fool, and maybe if we're lucky, someone who will buy us passage across that bridge to the forests beyond," Olek smiled. The stranger might distract the dead long enough for them to slip away. "Let's wait a few seconds, then backtrack and go around."
The fur-clad man's gait quickened as the dead turned to face him. Olek watched as the corpses regarded him with tilted heads, debating whether or not he was deceased or sickened, friend or food. He was neither.
The bear-shaped man suddenly shot forward two long paces, closing the gap between he and the closest undead man. In a hand truly the size of a black bear's paw he took up the heavy bag at his feet and swung it up in an underhanded arc, clipping the corpse on the jaw and lifting it off its feet. From a hundred meters away the boys heard the bones and teeth in the dead man's face break with muffled cracks. Before the first body hit the pavement the odd beast had moved on, swinging his bag filled with death above his head, smashing it into the skulls of the now decided undead.
Despite their decision, one by one they fell, their heads bashed by the contents of the strange sack.
Olek marveled at the odd creature of a man. At once the newcomer seemed incompetent and mad; he wore no armor Olek could see, and carried no rifle or pistol. He had no regard for his own safety and surely there had to be a better, safer way to cross into the city. Yet as Olek scrambled to find the sense in what the man did he watched as he did it with a skill that only came from experience. This man had used that bag as a weapon many times, and he put down zombie after zombie with a grace that belonged more to a ballerina than he. This man had skill and smarts. He could be dangerous… or helpful.
Olek watched with his arm around Aleksi as the badger smashed down the last of the dead on the overpass. His task complete, the man let the bag drop down to the ground again, and he surveyed his work. The boys watched as he bent over at the waist, cutting or stabbing at the dead for several minutes.
"Is he… cutting them for food?" Aleksi asked, horrified.
"I don't think so. I think he's stabbing them to make sure they are passed. Smar
t. Perhaps he is cutting away their belongings. I can't say."
The man stood up straight and waved at them.
Their position revealed, Olek scrambled to get his rifle off his shoulder as the man waved again. Aleksi fell to his ass and crawled backwards, scraping his elbows in the process. Olek got his weapon up and on the edge of the guardrail, the sights leveled off on the chest of the bag wielding man. He waved again and took several steps closer to the brothers, dragging his bag as he came.
He waved again. Olek snapped the AK's safety downward and the man stopped. The sound of the metal click rattled and echoed off the dark world like the tapping of a giant's cane. It foreshadowed the sound of doom. They were twenty meters apart now.
"Are you coming?" the man asked in a strange voice, thick and powerful like the waves of the sea against the rocks of the shore, and no less chaotic. His words did not echo, and unlike the gun's noise, they did not serve as a harbinger of doom.
All Things Zombie: Chronology of the Apocalypse Page 30