I calculated the chances we’d make it out of this. I’m no math whiz, but I quickly realized there was no way we could fill the Sokol’s tank before that crowd reached us. For a moment I thought I’d piss myself.
What the hell. It was as good a day as any to die. At least we’d go down swinging.
My hands were sticky with sweat. Behind me I heard Prit and Lucia struggling to start up the pump manually since there was no electricity to run the motor. The nun had joined them, willing, as always, to lend a hand, but there was so little space inside the fence and she just got in the way. I understood perfectly why she was there. I wouldn’t want to be alone as those harbingers of death closed in.
I had my own problems. The Undead wobbled unswervingly down the runway toward us, dragging their feet. We were about fifteen hundred feet from the terminal, a considerable distance for those creatures to cover, so we had a little time. But it wasn’t enough to get the fuel pump running and load the fuel into the Sokol’s tank.
There were thirty bullets in the HK’s magazine and I had two more magazines clipped to my belt. I made mental calculations again and realized it was impossible for me to stop that Unhuman tide. Or even slow it down.
I had less than a hundred bullets against more than two hundred creatures. If that weren’t bad enough, I’d only fired the weapon a couple of times. A few days ago, in a field, the Ukrainian had given me a crash course. I wasn’t a great shot to begin with, even worse at that distance. I’d mostly taken the Undead out in hand-to-hand combat with a considerable amount of luck.
“What the fuck’re you doing?” Lucia yelled. “Shoot! God dammit! Shoot!” That girl could swear like a truck driver, especially when she was scared.
“Please! Stop them!” Sister Cecilia’s voice joined in, panicked.
Stop them. Are you fucking kidding me? Why don’t I just waltz over there and invite them to get a beer at the airport bar? Or go to the beach, get a tan, and play volleyball!
Panic was creeping through me, cold and secretive. Time seemed to stand still. I couldn’t think clearly. Despite my friends’ cries, I stayed there on one knee, stiff as a board, in the middle of the runway. Suddenly, one of the Undead, a tall, middle-aged guy wearing shorts and a faded T-shirt, bumped into his neighbor and fell flat on his face. One of his flip-flops was long gone and his bare foot was completely destroyed from being dragged on the ground. At that moment, I saw every detail in sharp focus: the white bone sticking out of the guy’s foot; the sun shining in the distance; the delicate scent of decay blowing in on the wind; blades of grass shyly poking up through a crack in the pavement next to my knee…
“SHOOT!” Prit roared, red in the face, the veins in his neck about to explode, as he pumped the lever like a man possessed.
That shook me out of my trance. I lined up the sight the way the Ukrainian taught me, adjusted it to its maximum magnification, and aimed at the crowd, letting my mind go totally blank.
Through the sight, I saw that sea of monstrous faces as clearly as if they were right in front of me. Men, women, children, young and old, high class and low class, all with a sinister glow in their eyes. Those dead eyes filled me with dread and raised the hair on the back of my neck. On a dive years ago, I saw that same dark, detached look up close—in the eyes of a gray shark.
My first shot was high; it wasn’t even close to the Undead I was aiming at. The next several shots were on target, and four bodies lay limp on the runway. In that lapse of time, the Undead had advanced another hundred feet and were closing in. Seized with panic, I realized I could only bring down a handful of them, at most, before they were on top of us. Unconsciously I began to pray while I was shooting.
A cough came from the hose connected to the pump, then a series of clangs echoed from under the ground, and finally the pungent smell of benzene filled the air. The tank was open. A jet of fuel leaped from the mouth of the hose lying on the ground and stained the runway.
Pritchenko let out a wild cry of joy, while Lucia happily patted his back, but then his cry quickly died in his throat. In seconds, the jet of fuel went from a strong stream to a trickle and then nothing.
“That can’t be,” he muttered. “That just can’t be!”
“Lucia!” I heard him shout, as I replaced the magazine in my rifle. “Tell me what the pressure gauge says when I press this lever! Ready?” The Undead were within five hundred feet.
“Anytime, Prit!” Lucia yelled.
When the Ukrainian pressed a lever, a shrill whistle rang out as air that smelled of fuel wafted out of the pump.
“What does the dial say?” screamed Prit. “Tell me what it says!”
“Mark nine hundred!” Lucia answered, as scared and confused as the rest of us.
The Undead had advanced another fifty feet. More than a dozen bodies dotted the runway now. They were close, very close.
“Shit!” the Ukrainian shouted, punching the valve. “Shit,” he said over and over as he furiously threw a wrench into the Undead crowd.
I stared for a moment. Pritchenko’s eyes were flooded with tears and his expression was one of utter desolation.
“The tank’s empty. Just air inside. It’s empty.”
“It’s over,” I whispered.
“It’s over,” Prit repeated, a deep sadness in his voice, his arms limp at the sides.
All the color drained from Lucia’s face, as she fell back against the fence. Prit looked at the two women, then down at the HK in my hands. Don’t let them suffer the indignity of being Undead, his eyes said.
He didn’t have to say a word. I knew what I had to do. We wouldn’t let that crowd take us alive. I hoped I’d have the guts to finish the job and that my hand wouldn’t shake when my turn came.
I turned to Lucia. She was white as a sheet and trembling like a leaf but she had a determined look in her eyes.
She stared into my eyes and nodded. She knew what came next. I read “I love you” on her lips. “Me too,” I said. My soul was torn in two by what was going to happen. I shuddered. Tears ran down my cheeks and I couldn’t see clearly.
I raised the gun and aimed at Lucia. A few seconds later, we heard a rattling coming down the runway. Lucia had closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact of the bullets. When nothing happened, she opened her eyes and saw my astonished expression and Pritchenko’s and Sister Cecilia’s spellbound faces.
That rattle was not a firearm. It was a helicopter, approaching fast.
6
“There!” the Ukrainian shouted, pointing to a tiny dot on the horizon that was growing larger by the minute. “Headed right for us!”
To say that hope was reborn in us was putting it mildly. But the helicopter was still a couple of minutes away and the Undead were closing in. They were less than three hundred feet away. That didn’t give us enough time.
“Head for the control tower!” shouted the Ukrainian. “Run! God dammit! Run!”
“Wait,” I said as I jammed the last magazine in the HK. The first Undead were now within a hundred feet of us. “I can’t leave Lucullus!”
My poor cat, frightened by the gunfire, meowed plaintively in his carrier back in the helicopter’s cabin. I handed my rifle to Pritchenko and raced back to the helicopter, loading the spear gun slung on my back as I ran. I had only six spears left, but that was better than nothing.
I dashed inside the helicopter, bashing my shin against the steel post. I grabbed Lucullus’s carrier and groped around for the other HK we’d stashed behind the backpacks. Finally, my fingers touched the cold metal of the gun barrel. I swept aside the pile of our belongings, racking my brain for where we’d stashed the ammunition. Then I flashed to the image of Sister Cecilia and Lucia carrying a large chest—they’d packed it under the rest of our gear, behind the medicine boxes.
I started tossing bundles aside, but abandoned the effort after a quick glance out the cabin window. A group of about eight Undead was less than thirty feet from the helicopter. If they cornered m
e in that tight space, I was a goner.
Not looking back, I jumped out of the helicopter, cursing a blue streak. Just then, the rattle of the other helicopter’s rotors almost drowned out Prit’s muffled shots. With astonishing sangfroid, he retreated slowly to the control tower, covering Sister Cecilia and Lucia, who were running ahead. As cool as 007, the Ukrainian held the gun to his eye as he slowly walked backward. From time to time, he stopped, calmly aimed at the oncoming tide, and fired. Almost all of his shots left an Undead in a heap on the pavement, but the Undead were less than twenty feet away and he was running extremely low on ammunition.
I backed away from the Sokol, not taking my eye off the eight Undead surrounding the helicopter. Lucullus let out an enraged yowl, alerting me just in time. I turned and nearly bumped into four Undead. They must’ve come around the back of the helicopter and now cut off my path to the control tower. Switching Lucullus’s carrier to my left hand, I aimed the spear gun at the Undead closest to me and pulled the trigger. The spear entered the base of his neck and angled upward with a soft choop. He collapsed and flailed around on the ground as if he were having an epileptic fit. I lowered the spear gun and reloaded quickly, then turned to the other three Undead, who were almost within arm’s reach.
For a split second, I stared in amazement—two of those beasts were Moroccan soldiers. I could tell from their uniforms, but they were just as fucking Undead as the rest. The other was a teenage girl, in shorts and a yellow bikini top that had slipped off, exposing one of her breasts. That would have been a nice sight if it weren’t for the hole in her belly that was teeming with maggots.
The Moroccans advanced toward me, shoulder to shoulder, their arms outstretched. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I crouched down like an American football player, let out a yell that would’ve made a Comanche proud, and rammed them. That sudden movement took the Undead by surprise and they fell like bowling pins. However, my momentum caused me to stumble and I landed at the girl’s feet. She eagerly lunged for my throat.
Without thinking, I raised my left arm and slammed Lucullus’s carrier into her face. The carrier and the girl’s jaw shattered with a hideous crunch. I leapt to my feet but felt one of the Moroccan’s hands fumbling to grip my leg. Again, I said a prayer of thanks for my wetsuit. If I’d been wearing anything else, the bastard would’ve gotten a firm grip on me and I wouldn’t have had a chance, since the other eight were almost on top of us.
When I got back on my feet, I saw with dread that Lucullus was standing on the runway, stunned by the impact, looking first at me, then at the Undead as they struggled to their feet.
“Go on, Lucullus,” I said, as I cocked the HK. “Run!”
I don’t know if cats understand what their owners say, but they do have a strong survival instinct. Because of my shouting (or more likely, because of those creatures hunting us), Lucullus took off like a shot toward Lucia, who was silhouetted in the distance against the control tower.
I didn’t hang around to study the scene. I ran for my life!
7
Jaime wasn’t a bad kid. Midtwenties, tall, well built. He had a lot of friends, a girlfriend, a job, and a car. He played on a handball team and spent the weekends in the country, like everyone else. He’d grown a beard and let his hair grow long, which didn’t look good on him, but he liked it, along with the tribal tattoo he’d gotten a few years ago. A regular guy.
The only problem was, Jaime didn’t remember any of that. At the moment, Jaime was staggering around like dozens of other creatures, in the blazing sunlight that washed over the runway at Lanzarote Airport. He was one of Them now.
Jaime was an Undead.
Jaime’s mind, or what humans call reasoning, had shut down almost a year before when he’d become an Undead. If a doctor could’ve looked at his brain with a CT scan, he’d have been astonished to find that all the activity was taking place in the so-called “reptilian brain,” the most primitive part. In that hypothetical scanner, Jaime’s reptilian brain would be glowing with vivid colors, inundated by an abnormal amount of activity. The rest of the brain would be cloaked in darkness, like a city during a power outage.
Jaime didn’t remember how he’d gotten to the airport or where he’d come from or where he was going. His tattered clothes suggested he’d been in that state for several months. Nasty burns on his right arm indicated that, at some point, he’d gotten too close to a fire. Those burns would’ve been extremely painful if he were still human. But Jaime didn’t feel anything, not even the huge gash in his right thigh, which caused him to limp, where an Undead had bitten him. That bite had been his ticket to Avernus, the entrance to the underworld—hell.
Although Jaime couldn’t talk or reason, he could still feel basic emotions: hunger, excitement, and anger. A wave of anger mixed with desire and a ferocious appetite washed over him every time a living being crossed his path. Especially if it was human.
They were the tastiest prey. They ran around, screaming every time they saw Jaime or his companions in that nightmare. Some managed to escape. Some shattered an Undead’s head into a thousand pieces with the metal and fire instruments they held in their hands. But they were the exception. Most didn’t stand a chance.
Jaime had no idea how many humans he’d hunted since he’d become an Undead. He didn’t know that lodged in each lung was a bullet that should’ve caused respiratory failure. He didn’t know his appearance terrified humans—his long wind-blown hair, his shorts and Hawaiian shirt stiff with blood (some of it his, some of it human), his skin riddled with burst veins, and especially his lost, hate-filled glare.
Jaime didn’t know who was walking beside him; he probably wasn’t even aware they were there. All he knew was that he’d been wandering aimlessly inside that building when a sound from the sky had drawn him outside like iron filings to a magnet. Now, there were a handful of humans just ahead of him, running away, like they always did. Every cell in his body moaned with the desire to feel that warm, living, pulsing flesh, to grab it, bite it, chew it, feel that warm blood flowing into his mouth…
That was what gave meaning to his life—or rather, his non-life.
Jaime could see at least four people. Two of them looked more fragile (Jaime didn’t remember the difference between man and woman). They were almost at the foot of the tall building. Another one was dodging a group of Undead, with a small, furry, orange animal jumping wildly around his legs. The last human, a little guy, with a bushy, blond mustache and cold blue eyes, walked backward slowly, never taking his eyes off Jaime’s group. From time to time he lifted that metal thing to his face and a flame came out of the end of it with a bang. Jaime’s dead brain didn’t know what that flame was but he feared it.
Every time there was a burst of that flame, something whizzed past Jaime’s head with a painfully loud buzz, followed by a crack. Then splinters of bone and blood went flying, and one of the Undead fell to the ground but didn’t get back up. But that didn’t matter to him. Nothing mattered. He just wanted to get his hands on those beings and feel their living warmth.
The two smaller humans had reached the gates at the foot of the tower and were trying to clear away the debris blocking them. They were soon joined by the man with the little orange animal. The smaller man was just a few steps from Jaime’s group. He’d already picked up that man’s pungent, warm, alive, human smell.
Again, the small man raised that piece of metal, but this time there was no flash, just a click. For a moment the man stared at the metal thing; then he threw it with a furious shout at Jaime’s group and ran like hell for the tower.
The humans at the foot of the tower formed sounds with their mouths, something that Jaime and the other Undead could no longer do. Jaime didn’t understand those sounds, but they fueled his hunting instincts even more. The whole group of Undead picked up their pace.
When his group reached the tower, it was sealed off by a heavy metal door. Under normal circumstances, a door like that would’ve been
an insurmountable obstacle for Jaime and his companions, but this one had been breached by an explosion from inside and didn’t fit snugly in the door frame.
Succumbing to his anger, Jaime beat on the metal door with all his strength. The crowd of Undead around him had the same goal and had nearly flattened him against the door. A single idea ran around and around in his brain, like a warped bicycle wheel: gotta get to them… gotta get to them… gotta get to them…
The warped door didn’t hold up long as the crowd pressed in against it. With a gut-wrenching screech, the door gave way and crashed to the ground. The path was clear.
Since he was in front, Jaime was one of the first to rush up the stairs that led to the top of the tower. He knew those humans were up there. He could feel them.
The feet of dozens of Undead echoed in the stairwell as they climbed in a mad rush, toward their prize. On the next step, Jaime nearly fell flat on his face when he collided with one of the humans. It was a guy in puzzlingly slippery clothes. He’d planted himself at the bottom of the next flight of stairs and aimed a strange set of sticks at him. The former Jaime would have recognized it as a spear gun.
That spear gun fired with a hiss. Jaime felt a piece of metal pierce the bone in his forehead and sink deep into his brain. Neither he nor his rival knew that when the tip of the spear reached his cerebellum, Jaime would feel pain for the first time in months. The pain spread through his body in waves, fueling his anger. He extended his arms toward that human, but he couldn’t take a step. He saw the ground rising fast but didn’t register that he was falling until his head hit the concrete landing.
He could see the guy cast a scared look at the crowd pursuing him then retreated to the upper floor. He could still detect the feet of the other Undead passing by, oblivious to him as they continued after their prey. But soon the world began to fade as darkness slowly flooded every corner of Jaime’s mind. After a moment, the unquenchable fury he’d felt all those months receded the way the ocean retreats from the shore.
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