18
It was a really surprising weekend. I’d vacationed on the Canary Islands several years before and had always wanted to go back. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine coming back under those special conditions.
At the dock, a sweaty, stressed-out guy in a uniform, who was doing five things at once, checked our documents, gave us a quick handshake and rushed off on urgent business. Prit, Lucia, and I just stood there on the dock, all our luggage at our feet, waiting for the bus. We didn’t know what else to do.
Something made me uneasy and set my nerves on edge. The look on Lucia and Prit’s face told me they felt the same. The Ukrainian licked his lips; his eyes flitted nervously in every direction as he reached for a gun he didn’t have. Lucia rocked back and forth almost imperceptibly as she clutched Lucullus. Even the cat was twitching.
Finally it dawned on me—that crowd of people was making us jumpy. People were dashing here and there, going about their business, bumping into us, barely glancing at our frightened trio. I had to close my eyes to keep from passing out. Noises engulfed us: shouts, snatches of conversation, laughter, a child crying, a horse neighing, the hum of hundreds of mouths talking at once in the background. After a year of tomb-like silence, that multitude was a shock to our nerves.
Lucia pointed something else out: There was no smell of rotting flesh. Thousands of smells floated in the air, some pleasant, some not. We were in a port, after all. But they were human smells.
The strangest part was we had nothing to do. We didn’t have to run away. Not a single Undead was on our tail. For the first time in months, we were absolutely idle.
However, that picture of normality was misleading. Before the Apocalypse, there’d never been a crowd like that on that dock. There were no cars on the road except for a URO, Spain’s version of a Humvee, but there were a lot of draft animals dragging carts made from car chassis. In fact, the “bus” that took us to our new home was actually a cart pulled by two oxen.
They put us up in a former three-star hotel, built in the seventies. For decades it welcomed legions of European tourists, eager for sun and sand. Although clean and neat, the shabby building had seen better days. Even before it was turned into refugee housing, it wasn’t the best hotel on the island. The former reception area was now a communal playroom for the screaming children of the families in the complex. We hadn’t seen many children since very few had survived. And the number of babies and pregnant women overwhelmed us. Half the women looked like they could deliver any day. A primitive survival instinct must compel survivors to reproduce at all costs. I’d read about a similar phenomenon among Holocaust survivors, but I never imagined I’d witness it first-hand.
The residents in that building were classified as Auxiliary Navy Personnel, like Prit and me, and lived there with their families. Most were mechanics, engineers, highly skilled construction workers, electricians, even a vet, with all the skills essential to the community’s survival. Everyone but me, I thought bitterly. I was there because the island bureaucracy had lumped Pritchenko and me together as “experienced survivors.” If that weren’t so tragic, I’d laugh.
We were assigned three adjoining rooms on the fifth floor. There was electricity for only six hours a day, from six pm till midnight, which proved to be a real pain in the ass. With no elevator, we had to trudge up all those flights of stairs.
Fortunately, the previous tenants had torn down the walls, connecting the rooms into an apartment. The rooms were dingy but clean, and there was running water, just no hot water. When the electricity was on, we could pick up the signal from the island’s TV station on the television screwed to the wall above the bed. All in all, things were okay.
The downside was, in twenty days, Prit and I had to report to a “special work group” at a barracks downtown. Something told me we weren’t going to like that “special work” one bit.
19
Hard to believe we’d only been on the islands for a few weeks and were already mixed up in a bad situation! I was so angry I wanted to scream. In frustration, I kicked a trash can as we were walking out of the office and sent it rolling down some stairs, making a shitload of noise. All that got me was a glare from a secretary and a sore foot.
We’d had a few short, happy weeks of vacation. We relaxed, gorged ourselves, slept like the dead, and baked on the beach. Then one morning, a messenger came to our home with a summons for Prit and me. At noon we were to report to the former headquarters of MALCAN, the command center and logistic support group on the islands, in Weyler Plaza downtown. Dozing beside Lucia, I could hear Prit arguing with the guy in the next room. He finally gave up and signed the receipt. I got up, my hair standing on end, my eyes bloodshot, and found my friend with a worried look on his face. That couldn’t be good.
“What the hell’d that guy want?” I asked, as I filled the coffeepot with the vile stuff they called coffee.
“See for yourself,” the Ukrainian muttered, holding out the paper. “They want us to start earning our keep.”
After breakfast and a shower, we headed out, our stomachs in knots. We weren’t sure what they wanted from us. To say we had our guard up was putting it mildly.
A beat-up URO was parked in front of the old hotel. At the wheel was a young kid, barely eighteen, in an ill-fitting uniform. I’d have bet a million euros that boy had just enlisted. He’d probably been a refugee like us just months before. During the first weeks of the Apocalypse, the military took a huge hit as it tried to defend the Safe Havens. Now they filled the gaps in their ranks with anyone they could find.
After five minutes on the road, it became clear the kid had little experience driving a heavy vehicle the size of a URO. He lurched through the crowded streets, laying on the horn like a Cairo taxi driver at rush hour, nonchalantly whizzing past cars, trucks, and pedestrians. He even drove up on the sidewalk. Every time he shifted, it sounded like he was going to rip the transmission to shreds. Forty minutes later, we miraculously reached Weyler Plaza in one piece.
When Prit and I looked around, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Most of the historic, art nouveau buildings that surrounded the plaza had been burned to some degree. Their walls were pockmarked by shrapnel and bullet holes, a sure sign the area had been the scene of a fierce battle. I wordlessly pointed to a dark black spot that stained the ground under our feet like a sinister carpet. Prit reached down, scratched the surface, and took an expert sniff. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Napalm.”
The building was packed with office workers running around, doing God-knows-what. They kept us waiting for a long time in a small room decorated with the flags of dozens of regiments that probably no longer existed except in memory. By the time a sergeant finally hurried us into an office, the sun was high in the sky.
A bald, pudgy little guy who looked to be pushing fifty sat at a desk. His black goatee stood out against his pasty white skin and bobbed up and down as he talked. He wasn’t wearing a uniform—surprising since up till then, we were the only people we’d seen in street clothes. He was talking a blue streak on two phones at once as his hands flew over a computer keyboard. Beside him, one assistant held a ton of folders, while another madly rifled through documents piled on a side table. People streamed in and out of that office in a systematic way like a well-organized anthill. The guy motioned for Pritchenko and me to sit in chairs in front of his desk, but kept on barking orders into the phone.
As we waited for that guy to finish all his conversations, I checked out the mess piled around him. Most of the folders bore the seal of the Second Operational Quartermaster Corps, a unit I’d never heard of before. From what the guy was yelling into the phone, I surmised that that building was the unit’s administrative headquarters.
Our host brusquely introduced himself as “Luis Viena, administrative head of the Second Quartermaster Corps” then went back to arguing with someone at the other end of the line about acquiring several hundred liters of helicopter fuel. He wanted the fuel immediate
ly and the person on the other end of the line was refusing to provide it. He finally reached an agreement, citing something called “Presidential Priority,” then hung up looking pleased with himself.
He sat there, lost in thought for a few long seconds. Then he blinked, pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his sweaty brow, and turned to us with a broad smile on his face.
“Good morning, good morning.” His words poured out in a torrent. “I’m very sorry to keep you waiting so long, but organizing an operation of this size is difficult, very difficult, yes sir, especially with so few resources and the staff… the staff,” he snorted contemptuously and waved his hand theatrically. “Oh sure, most are good people, hard-working men and women, dedicated, very dedicated of course, but their training and experience… know what I mean? You don’t get training and experience overnight, no sir.” His hand cut the air like an imaginary ax. “No way.”
Prit and I kept our mouths shut. That hyperactive little man stood up, still ranting, as he rummaged around in a file cabinet. Finally he found folders with our names on them and turned toward us, triumphant, waving the folders as if they were fans.
“Organization. Organization and a system,” he said proudly. “Those are the keys, yes sir.” He rattled on as he sat back down, distractedly extracted some reports from the mountain of papers piled on his desk, then stuffed them into the folders he was holding.
He read our names aloud and, for the next ten minutes, delved into our considerably thick files. Occasionally he let out an “uh-huh” or an “ah-ha” and even a couple of surprised “oh’s” and looked up at our faces. Finally, he set the folders back on his desk, took off his glasses, and rubbed his weary eyes. Then he started talking again.
Over the next half hour he told us all about himself, saying he headed up a task force. He wasn’t in uniform because, although he’d served in the army, he was no longer a soldier. Before the Apocalypse, he’d been an executive at Inditex, the world’s largest fashion conglomerate. For over fifteen years, he’d run the company’s giant clothing distribution center in Zaragoza. He’d been enjoying a quiet holiday at his home in the islands with his wife and daughters when the world went to hell. Powerless, he witnessed the world’s collapse, the defeat of humanity at the hands of the Undead, and the arrival of shattered survivors. At first they flooded in, but that downpour slowly became a drip that ended with us. Once things settled down, the army recruited him to be its quartermaster and bring order to the broken supply chain. Given his background, he was the right person, the only person with experience in organizing huge amounts of resources. So far, he’d done a remarkable job.
I envied that chatty, high-strung guy. Not only had he survived the Apocalypse, peacefully, in the Canaries, in his own home, surrounded by his family, but he worked comfortably behind a desk, hundreds of miles from the nearest Undead and all that shit. A piece of cake, compared to what we’d been through,
My instincts told me Prit and I—not that guy—were going to have to smell that shit up close.
TSJ hadn’t just carried off useless people or criminals. Many of the fallen were people with knowledge and skills essential to society’s survival. Engineers, architects, agronomists, nurses, pilots, doctors, soldiers—all missing in large numbers, especially the latter. Medical personnel and the military had suffered huge losses, since they were the first line of defense in the losing battle against TSJ. The government was trying to rebuild the military and medical corps as fast as possible, but that took time.
And that’s where we came in. Prit was one of the few surviving helicopter pilots; all the flight hours he’d logged made him invaluable. As for me, the fact that I’d spent over a year in the Wild West, as the military called areas infested with Undead, made me a seasoned veteran, able to survive in a hostile environment and look out for less experienced members of my team.
As Viena spoke, I felt the blood drain from my face. He must be fucking joking. Me? A seasoned veteran? I spent most of that year running from one place to another like a scared rabbit or hidden in the basement of Meixoeiro Hospital! I was no Rambo!
I politely pointed that out to Mr. Viena. And, in case he hadn’t noticed, Viktor Pritchenko, although certainly an exceptional pilot, had lost half a hand in an explosion. We weren’t who they thought we were—just two exhausted survivors who wanted to start a new life. We’d do any job they entrusted to us, but we were no soldiers. Not for all the gold in the world would we go back to that so-called Wild West. I said all this in a long speech, then sat back and studied my interviewer.
Viena sat perfectly still for a moment, staring at us. Then he cleared his throat and spoke. “Gentlemen, I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m giving you an order that comes from much higher up. If you think you can resume the orderly life you led before the Apocalypse, think again. The world has completely changed and that change affects all of us. All of us. Including you, gentlemen.” He turned to Prit. “And Mr. Pritchenko’s in a very delicate situation. True, he’s one of the most experienced pilots on the islands and God knows we need good pilots. But there’s that ugly business with the nun.”
I grabbed Prit’s arm to stop him from leaping across the table, as the Ukrainian muttered a string of curses in Russian.
“That brings us to the next situation.” Viena nodded, deep in thought, indifferent to Prit’s reaction. “If Mr. Pritchenko voluntarily enlists in the quartermaster corps, we could… how should I put this… find a solution agreeable to all parties in the matter of the Galicia. There wouldn’t be a trial and all charges would be dropped.”
“As for you.” Now he turned to me. “Surely you can see how much we need a person of your experience to face those monsters. Our raiding parties have been to the Wild West three or four times, tops. However, you and your friend,” he stopped to glance at my file, “survived for more than a year out there. Few of us here can say that,” he said with a smile.
I sat there in silence for a few seconds. The way he put it made sense. They had Prit by the balls; he had to accept. Just the thought of turning my back on my only friend made my stomach clench. Plus, if I didn’t accept the assignment, I had no idea how the hell I was going to survive. I’d asked around and they sure didn’t need any more lawyers.
I looked over at Prit. What choice do we have? his eyes said.
“At least we’re in this together, right?” he asked, resting a hand on my shoulder.
“Of course, Prit, don’t worry,” I replied, hiding my distress, my mind racing at top speed. Back into the fucking shit.
“Great, gentlemen!” Viena clapped his hands. He quickly signed some forms and set them in front of us to sign. “After you leave here, they’ll take you to your group’s headquarters. If you have arrangements to make at home, do it right away.” He peered over his glasses. “You head to the Peninsula tomorrow. I don’t have to tell you what you’ll find there.”
20
That morning was unusually cold for the Canary Islands. You could still see Venus twinkling in the sky. Our group rubbed our hands and stamped our feet on the concrete floor of the Reina Sofia Airport to fight off the bitter cold.
After our meeting with Luis Viena, we only had time to rush home, grab a few personal items and say good-bye to Lucia. The worst part was telling Lucia that we’d been “drafted” and that Prit and I had to return to the Peninsula as part of a support team. In those few hours, my darling girl went through several stages of grief: anger, indignation, tears, anger. She finally accepted the situation with resignation. But, this morning, when she said good-bye, she was distant and cold. I didn’t blame her.
She actually didn’t hold me responsible for the situation, but there was a wall between us. I didn’t understand until Prit explained to me what even a blind man could see. Lucia had experienced a terrible trauma, losing all her loved ones in a very short time. Prit, Sister Cecilia, and I were all the family she had. Now, the nun was fighting for her life and we were leaving on a very risky journey. Luc
ia was afraid it’d be a repeat of those terrible times in Vigo. I was so thickheaded, I thought she was mad at me. What a damn fool I was! I wanted to hold her in my arms and tell her not to worry, nothing in the world could stop me from coming home, everything would be okay, but I didn’t do that when I had the chance.
The past few hours hadn’t been easy for us, either. We joined our team at the military base at Tenerife North Airport for training on the weapons we’d use on our mission.
Fifteen minutes earlier, an officer decked out in full dress uniform drove us to an empty hangar at one end of the airport. He climbed onto the hood of a URO and announced our mission. As the words came out of his mouth, I was sure I was having a horrible flashback. It had to be a cruel joke. But it was real. And fucked up. They really were sending us back to the Peninsula. To Madrid, one of the most dangerous places in Europe.
Madrid wasn’t a quiet, abandoned corner of the world. Nearly six million people had lived in the city and its suburbs before the Apocalypse. Only about fifteen thousand of the refugees on the islands were from there, so that meant Madrid would be teeming with millions of Undead, just waiting for us.
“Our objective is Safe Haven Three, one of the city’s five refuges.” The officer shouted. “Said Safe Haven withstood the Undeads’ assaults for only four days. We believe more than three quarters of a million people lost their lives there.” He cast his eyes over the group as that chilling figure sunk in.
“But you aren’t going there to tour the battlefield! The largest building inside that Safe Haven was La Paz Hospital, which housed offices, stores, cafeterias, and dormitories. Next door to it was the largest pharmaceutical warehouse in Madrid. It supplied drugs to other Safe Havens by air.” He paused. “Unfortunately, the tide of Undead thwarted that plan.”
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