The helicopter flew back over the ocean, to the far end of the dock, where a number of large ships crowded the harbor. Anchored a considerable distance away was a ship painted a dull navy-gray. The strange structure in the front ended abruptly and its stern resembled a small landing strip. It looked like some nitwit navy engineer had left half of the ship back at the shipyard.
The L-51 painted in huge white letters on the side identified it as part of the Spanish fleet. We were going to land on one of the strangest ships that ever sailed. Up until a few months ago, it had been an amphibious assault ship. As we flew over the ship’s stern, I read the name on the hull and smiled at the bitter irony. After nearly a year dancing with death for thousands of miles, I was back home.
The ship was named Galicia.
12
By the time we landed on the Galicia’s deck, the sky had turned blood red. Marcelo pointed to the sliding door and motioned for us to climb out. Suddenly, the atmosphere grew tense. The Argentine made a show of drawing his side arm in case of trouble. Even jovial Pauli was all business, with a serious look on her face. The large revolver she was holding looked like a cannon in her small hands. If she fired that gun, the recoil would probably propel her backward. Both the pilot and copilot were also armed with handguns. They’d turned around and faced the cabin, convincing us to leave the relative safety of the helicopter and jump onto the deck.
A warm wind filled with the scent of fertile land reached our noses when we set foot on the Galicia’s deck. Two small choppers with bulbous glass covers also sat on the landing pad—reconnaissance helicopters, I guessed. I glanced up at the ship’s mast. I could just make out the Spanish flag flying overhead in the half-dark of twilight. A flag I didn’t recognize fluttered in the breeze below the national flag. It was dark blue with the shield of Spain in the center, but above the shield was a crown sitting atop a wall instead of just the crown. Most of the other ships flew the same combination of flags.
I scratched my head, trying to understand, but soon I had more important things to think about. A dozen people clad in hazmat suits filed out a door at the base of the superstructure. Polarized visors covered their faces so I couldn’t make out their gender or age. From their height and gait, I concluded that most were men, and three or four were women. As they got closer, I automatically stepped closer to Prit, who instinctively covered my back.
“I don’t like this one bit, man,” the Ukrainian hissed, his eyes glued to the group.
“If things get ugly, let’s all jump overboard, agreed? You grab the nun and I’ll grab Lucia and the cat.”
“Lucullus won’t be too thrilled about swimming to shore. Me, either,” Prit shuddered. “I hate swimming when I can’t see the bottom.”
“Better saltwater than lead, Prit.”
“For now let’s play it cool.” The Ukrainian’s soldier-like gaze swept the area, coldly assessing our situation. “We’re too high up. They’d fry us before we hit the water. Look up there.”
I looked where he pointed with his eyes. Dressed in combat fatigues were a couple of sailors, stationed behind a heavy machine gun on a ledge about twenty feet high with a clear view of the entire runway. They’d know if we sneezed.
Lucia listened with a terrified look in her eyes. I sighed, downhearted. We had no choice but to accept what those people planned to do with us.
The first of the team in hazmat suits had reached us. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I guessed he was examining every member of my “family,” including Lucullus, who was squirming in Lucia’s arms. He studied us for a really long time. After all, we were a very colorful, almost shocking group.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pauli, Marcelo, and the two helicopter pilots head into the ship. Clad only in shorts and T-shirts, they crammed their flight suits into toxic waste disposal bags. This was just routine procedure to them.
“Don’t worry, Peninsula guys,” said Pauli as she walked by. “We’ll see you when you get out of quarantine!” With a cheerful wave, she disappeared through the door, followed by the sour-faced Marcelo.
Great. Now what?
“Welcome to Tenerife. I’m Dr. Jorge Alonso.” The filter in his suit distorted his voice. He seemed to be in charge. “Please stay calm. If you cooperate and follow instructions, everything’ll go as smooth as silk. This is a mandatory medical procedure, so relax and let us do our job. The sooner we finish, the sooner you’ll get out of quarantine. Let’s make this easy, okay?” His voice was conciliatory, but firm, as he pointed to the door the helicopter crew had passed through.
I nodded, too stunned to speak.
The corridors of the ship were painted regulation navy gray; dozens of pipes and cables crisscrossed the ceiling. We passed several doors that were locked tight. One of the doors had a porthole; three or four sailors had crowded around on the other side of the glass to get a look at the “survivors from the Peninsula.” I didn’t know what to think… Were we that bizarre? That could be good or bad. Very bad.
We stopped where two hallways intersected. Dr. Alonso took the lead again.
“Men here, women over there, please.”
“Wait,” I said. “We’d like to stick together. We came here together and we want—”
“I don’t care what you want or don’t want, sir,” he cut me off. “Rules are rules. Men down this hall, women and children down that hall. Please cooperate.”
“Hey, be reasonable,” I answered, summoning up my inner negotiator. “This is new to us, so if you wouldn’t mind, we’d rather—”
This time a tall guy, also in a hazmat suit, spoke up. “Look, friend. This isn’t a debate. It’s not even a discussion. Do what we say. End of story. Got it? If you don’t like it, I hope you know how to swim, because Africa’s a long way from here. So don’t fuck around and do what Dr. Alonso says. Men on the right, women on the left! LET’S GO!” he roared, brandishing an electric prod.
I raised my hands and headed down the hall on the right. After giving that guy a killer look, Prit joined me. I wouldn’t want to be in that guy’s shoes if he ever crossed Pritchenko’s path in a dark alley.
Sister Cecilia and Lucia went down the aisle to the left. Suddenly, Lucia broke away and planted herself next to me, setting Lucullus in my arms.
“Take him.” She gave me a quick kiss. “I haven’t forgotten what you said in Lanzarote.”
“Stay calm. It’ll be okay.” My voice broke. “Watch out for her, Sister!” I called after them as they walked down the hall. “Be careful! See you soon!”
“Don’t worry, my son! We’re in God’s hands!”
No, we’re in these people’s hands, Sister, I thought. And that might not be such a good thing.
“Where’re you taking them? What’re you going to do with us?” Pritchenko was pissed off.
Dr. Alonso shrugged. His soft, sweet voice gave me chills. “Like I said, my friend. To quarantine. Now, if you don’t mind, through that door, please.”
13
Basilio Irisarri was an alcoholic. When he went on one of his many benders, his shipmates would have to drag him back to the ship. Basilio didn’t know it but that detail saved his life.
Basilio was an old-school sailor: simple, direct, and crude. He first shipped out when he was seventeen. He became experienced and capable, having spent time on many ships, mostly as boatswain, in charge of maintenance. He was promoted to chief petty officer a few times, but his surly, belligerent personality coupled with his binge drinking always dragged him down. He was forty-five, tall, and carried a growing spare tire around his waist. His arms looked like pistons, and the knuckles on his huge hands were battered from fighting in ports all over the world.
A year and a half before, Basilio joined the crew of the Marqués de la Ensenada, an oil tanker in the Spanish navy, anchored in Cartagena, Colombia. Six hours after going ashore, Basilio and a couple of shipmates had gotten plastered and had wrecked a bar, broken a chair over a pimp’s head, and picked a fight with sev
eral Colombian police officers. MPs arrested them and sent them back to their ship, where they were locked up in their quarters.
Basilio spent the next forty-eight hours in the throes of a terrible hangover, but he heard a lot of voices screaming and sailors running around up top. Through the narrow porthole in his cabin, he watched Cartagena’s military port quickly become an anthill.
Many ships, packed with people, hastily weighed anchor and jammed the mouth of the port trying to get out. On land, thousands of people, mostly civilians, tried to reach anything afloat, no matter the cost. The authorities had planned to evacuate the city by sea, but clearly the situation had overwhelmed them. There were too many people and too few ships. Out his tiny porthole, Basilio watched the Colombian military scurry around, trying to bring order to the chaos, but the terrified crowd was out of control.
Basilio didn’t read newspapers, and he hadn’t listened to the radio or watched TV for days, so he had no idea that in the days leading up to the Apocalypse, chaos was rampant all over the world. At first, with all the gunshots and explosions throughout the city, he thought there’d been a civil war or revolution in Colombia. But the frantic activity of the soldiers convinced him it was something else.
Anchored next to the Marqués de la Ensenada were an American destroyer and a French frigate. Large detachments of their crews (except the sick or those locked up like Basilio) had gone ashore to join the overwhelmed Colombians in trying to control the panicked crowd. In horror, Basilio witnessed an avalanche of thousands of people sweep over those American soldiers and French sailors, as if they were toys, in their rush to the sea.
The shores had quickly become a hive of thousands of men, women, and children splashing and punching one another, trying to keep from drowning or being crushed by people falling on top of them. The water was churned up by thousands of arms and legs. People were knocked senseless when they stuck their heads up for air in the midst of that morass.
Someone panicked and started firing wildly into the crowd. Soon hundreds of people were exchanging shots, desperate to board the ships remaining in the harbor. Columns of black smoke rose across the city. Law and order was breaking down and nobody could stop it.
Basilio’s mouth was as dry as the desert. He rubbed his eyes, hoping that that hellacious scene was just a hallucination brought on by the DTs, but he knew it was painfully real. He turned away from the porthole, unable to watch anymore, but he couldn’t tune out the screams of thousands of people drowning a few feet away. The pounding and clawing of people futilely trying to climb the ship’s smooth sides were like blows to his head. Yet Basilio didn’t shed any tears. He was safe. Every man for himself, he thought.
Six hours later, one of the lieutenants on the ship opened the cell door. His uniform was soaking wet and torn. Blood poured from a huge gash in his head. Of all the crew that had gone ashore, he and a sergeant were the only survivors. Over seven hundred people, mostly civilians, were crammed into every corner on that tanker. Only four members of the original crew, including Basilio, had survived the chaos.
Loaded down with refugees, the Marqués de la Ensenada began a harrowing journey back home. It lacked enough food, water, and medicine for that many people. Its crew barely knew how to steer the ship. A violent hurricane nearly sent the ship to the bottom. When it finally reached the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, more than a hundred people had died along the way. Twenty with “suspicious wounds” had been executed on board. There were still fifteen cases of infection onboard, which forced everyone to spend a month floating in the port in quarantine.
Enduring a month without a drop of alcohol was torture for Basilio.
Basilio had lived in Tenerife ever since. He’d even enlisted in the navy. The world had changed in a year, but his propensity to get into trouble hadn’t. A drunken spree that ended in a massive brawl five months before had gotten him assigned to a disciplinary post—guard duty on the quarantine ship. It was the worst fate a guy could have, cut off from the city, surrounded by people who might be infected. His drinking problem had landed him in what to him was the closest thing to hell in Tenerife. He cursed that shitty post every day.
Basilio was stationed at the sentry post in the corridor that led to the isolation cells. It was small and spartanly furnished with just two chairs, a wooden table, and a rack that held a half-dozen shiny, black automatic rifles.
His hands trembling, Basilio poured a big glass of the local rum out of a bottle he’d hidden under the ammo box. He had to think of something fast. He knew he was fucked and he wasn’t going to get off easy. It was that fucking nun’s fault, that fucking nun from hell. Why’d she have to stick her nose where it didn’t belong? No, that fucking group from the Peninsula was to blame. They’d been trouble from the start. Who’d have thought anyone would still be alive there?
A few months after the Apocalypse, very few survivors made it to Tenerife; even fewer survived quarantine. His duties aboard the Galicia were unpleasant but not very demanding. Occasionally, small groups from northern Africa all the way to the Sahara desert made it to the Canary Islands on any boat they could get their hands on. Basilio despised those people. They were just damned African scum, most on death’s door who didn’t have the good sense to die at home. It baffled him why the authorities took those people in when supplies were alarmingly low. Basilio would’ve sent them all back to Africa with lead in their skulls, but those fucking faggots in the government didn’t know how to take charge of the situation like real men.
Basilio spit on the floor in disgust. Those Africans presented a problem, but also some distraction, especially the women. Most of them didn’t speak Spanish, English, or anything like it, just Arabic or one of those African dialects even God didn’t understand. But that gave the sailors an advantage. On more than one occasion, Basilio and a couple of guards had had some fun with those girls in a back room they jokingly called “Paradise.”
Of course, none of the medical staff, commanders, or civilian authorities knew about Basilio and his cronies’ little secret. They’d have been in serious trouble if anyone ever found out. Martial law was still in force and rape was punishable by death. But since those downtrodden African girls didn’t speak Spanish, they couldn’t complain. Besides, most of them had suffered so much along the way that being raped one more time didn’t matter much. They’d made it to the only safe place in two thousand miles, so they almost all kept quiet. Any woman who made trouble, well… Basilio smirked and knocked back half the rum in his glass. She wouldn’t be the first to have her file pulled and put in the “likely infected” pile. Just one step away from becoming fish food.
But this group was different. They were Europeans, and that changed everything. If that weren’t enough, they’d flown over from the mainland! Somehow, they’d survived for over a year, surrounded by Undead. The authorities had taken a real interest in them. Alicia Pons herself had taken on their case.
Fuck, Basilio, you’re in a shitload of trouble! he thought, pouring himself another drink. When she finds out about this, you’re a dead man. That Pons bitch’ll cut your balls off and feed ‘em to you with hot sauce. He slammed his fist on the table, as he racked his brain for a way out.
They were a strange group. First there was the fucking lawyer with the cat. He hadn’t stopped bellyaching since day one, demanding to speak to the person in charge. When they tried to put down his fucking cat, he raised such hell the doctors gave in. He broke the doctor’s arm in two places! Alicia Pons decided the cat could live, the most unbelievable decision so far. Basilio couldn’t see how that paper-pushing asshole had survived. He just couldn’t picture the guy shooting a gun.
The Ukrainian guy was another story. That guy was dangerous. He was short, blond, about forty with a huge yellow mustache. He was missing a couple of fingers on his right hand; he must’ve lost them in a fight. The guy was very quiet, calm, but he watched you… oh, damn, the way his pale eyes bore into the back of your neck ga
ve you the creeps, as if he were thinking over how he could hurt you faster. (Basilio had no idea how right he was.)
The young girl was a fucking hottie. Nice body, with curves that made your head spin and that face… blessed Christ, she’d make a cloistered monk’s blood boil. And there she was, within arm’s reach.
During the first weeks, Basilio played it safe. He made some raunchy comments as he made his rounds, but he hadn’t touched her. However, that morning, when he took the girl and the nun to their medical exams, he’d let his hand graze the girl’s breasts. He was very drunk and not fully aware of what he was doing. He’d done that with the African girls but they were so cowed they’d let him get away with it. But this girl exploded and slapped his face.
Basilio knew from experience that alcohol and anger didn’t mix; it was a lethal cocktail he’d never conquered. Before he knew it, a red veil formed over his eyes, and his temples started to throb. No woman laid a hand on him, especially in front of his men. He slammed his fist into the bitch’s temple and she collapsed on the ground like a rag doll. He raised his baton over his head to teach that bitch a lesson. Suddenly the fucking nun stepped in the middle and, incredibly, she slapped him too.
Then he lost it.
Basilio beat his head against the wall, thinking how stupid he’d been. When he finally came to his senses, the nun was lying unconscious on the floor, blood streaming from her cracked skull.
He didn’t know if he’d killed her. To make the fucking situation worse, it took place on the last day of quarantine, just hours before they were to be released. At that very moment, Commander Pons was heading to the Galicia to process their papers and bring them on land. The nun was in the infirmary, more dead than alive. The other guards had scattered, looking for a place to hide until the storm passed.
In forty minutes, Basilio Irisarri was going to be in deep shit unless he came up with something—fast.
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