“When we get back,” Steve’s voice boomed from below, “I’ll make you the manager and double the salary. As for me, I’m going to head to Mexico for a week. I think I need a vacation.”
Ramses handed Steve his backpack and his crowbar as he heard hurried footsteps coming from the staircase. The Chinese man.
“Ay, wait!” Zhang Wei said. “Solly, eh. Just want to say eight is a rucky numberd.”
Ramses frowned. “Huh? Come again, partner?”
“Solly,” Zhang Wei’s face reddened. “My Engrish not good. Never school enough.”
Ramses scratched his head through his knit hat. “Ah, I got it, man. You wanna say eight is a lucky number in the Chinese culture? What does it mean? Wealth, I guess?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Zhang Wei nodded repeatedly with a smile. “Means wealth or fortune. And there are eight of you.”
“Thanks, man,” Ramses said. He wrapped a scarf around the lower half of his face and turned on his flashlight. “Fortune and glory, here I come.”
They went squelching through the mud. The hotel had been built in a new area where the pipes were wider than in the rest of the city, but still, they had to crouch as there was no room to stand full-height. In one of the branches of the pipe, they crawled on their bellies. Erkan’s stomach gave way, and he chucked up his lunch on Gleb’s boots.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay, man?” Ramses asked him. “It’s not too late for you to go back.”
“I’m good,” Erkan said, wiping his wet mouth. His face was pale. “I’m good.”
In about five minutes they finally saw the light coming down through the grate. Ramses climbed up the iron ladder fixed to the wall of the manhole and used his crowbar to lift the cover.
It was quiet outside. The manhole was not far from the riverbank. The air was not filled with the wailing of car alarm systems. Their batteries had run out of charge. The blizzard was ravaging the streets.
One by one, they got out. They went across the river, little dots on a large patch of snow. The wind was getting stronger, but they marched on. When they reached the opposite bank of the river, the visibility dropped to zero. They were hidden by a blanket of snow. And so were the undead. The falling snow made it hard to spot the ghouls in time. They relied on hearing the creatures’ moaning, which could betray them and warn the living of the approaching death.
The streets had not been cleaned for a week, and the snowdrifts were deep. The snow was knee-deep in places.
They spotted a swarm of creatures and hid behind burnt car carcasses. Engaging in combat having limited ammo was not part of their plan. They dispatched occasionally a couple of zombies on their way, but the expedition had gone without a hitch so far.
Lucky number, Ramses thought.
The moon lighted up in the sky as they came to an intersection. They halted. Ramses took out his scope and saw an overturned bus, blocking a large portion of the road.
As they were passing the bus, they saw a little figure in its hatch. The creature, which they could barely see in the dim moonlight, was struggling to get out of the bus. It was stuck. The creature moaned, stretching out its hands toward them. The company moved up a little closer toward the bus. It was a child. A little boy of about nine years old. Ramses drew his pistol to deliver a coup de grâce and pointed it before him.
Then he lowered his gun with a sigh. “Won’t hurt us. Let’s move on.”
“No,” Goran said, taking out his butcher knife out of its sheath. “He’s infected. We can’t leave him like this. He’s going to bite someone and spread the virus.”
No one said anything against it. There were two quick slashes, and the moaning stopped.
***
The windows of the arms store were shattered. The door hung on one hinge. Andy, Ramses, Steve, and Marcel went in. Goran, Stas, Erkan, and Gleb stayed outside on the lookout.
“Call us, if you need more action,” Goran said.
Marcel was the first to step into the darkness of the store. He shouted in Russian a request not to shoot. An undead male security guard got off the floor and shambled toward him, attracted by his voice. The dead man let out a moan. Ramses’s flashlight snatched two raging eyes from the gloom. Steve thrust his short self-made metal staff into the open mouth with a wet sound. The mad stare in the freak’s eyes faded.
Another ghoul lunged at them from around the corner. Ramses pushed Steve away and put a bullet through the zombie’s head. The shot was extremely loud in a closed space. The zombie was a safe distance away, and Steve could have easily used his weapon on the monster. A little fussy, but no sound and no pierced eardrums.
The zombie put down his outstretched hands and fell on the floor. Steve cupped his ears with his hands and looked reproachfully at Ramses.
Ramses looked back apologetically. “Sorry.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“I told you I’m sorry,” Ramses repeated.
Steve shook his head in disbelief. “Man.”
“All right, guys,” Andy said and drew his gun from the harness. “Stay focused.”
They kept walking. There was trash on the floor. Broken glass and plastic. Baby clothes. Tiny boots. Piles of dead bodies with bullet wounds. The owners must have had a real guerilla war here, protecting themselves both from zombies and looters.
Ramses looked around a spacious showroom. No merchandise anywhere. Marcel leaned over to pick up a shell from the floor. It was unused. He pocketed it.
“The advert in the catalog says the name of the store is “Arsenal,” Andy said. He pointed at a sign on the wall. “This one reads, “Guns and Roses”.
“New owners?” Steve said.
“My guess is that the new owner was going to move in soon,” Andy said. “There’s nothing here. We have to leave.”
“Let’s check the next room out,” Ramses said, “before calling it a day.”
The adjacent showroom was barricaded with chairs and tables. They had to move away the furniture from their way to get in.
More bodies on the floor. Mangled, torn flesh. Shot skulls.
Behind the barricade, they found a smaller showroom. The entrance was barred. Chains crisscrossed the bars on the inside. There was a padlock on the bars. They removed the chains, and Ramses broke the padlock with his crowbar. He recalled his burglar’s experience when he was a teenaged problem kid breaking into stores and apartments.
A closed door. They stood at the side of the door.
“Is anybody there?” Andy said in Russian. “Do not shoot. We mean no harm. We just need guns and ammo, that’s all. In return, we can provide you with food and shelter. You can come with us. But please don’t shoot.”
No response. They could hear only each other’s breaths. The wind was howling outside. It was pitch dark.
Ramses showed everyone a sign that he would go first. Andy grasped the grip of the gun tighter. Steve pushed the door with his staff. It opened with a screech. No one behind it.
Ramses entered the office quickly, ready to let the lead go any moment. Blankets and clothes were scattered on the floor. Covered with white frost.
The room was devoid of any movement because it contained no life.
They stepped into the dark office. The window was covered with newspapers and magazine pages. They gagged on the unbearable stench. Goran flashed his torch and stepped back in terror. On the floor, huddled together, he found three dead bodies. All of them had a bullet hole in their heads. A man. Seated. A gun in his hand. A mask of fear frozen deep into his bearded face. A woman. Glassy eyes and frozen lips. There was a toddler boy in her lap wrapped in a thin blanket. Ramses spotted bite marks on the little boy’s hands. He took a closer look. No zombie bites. Self-inflicted bites.
There was a microwave oven on the desk. Dishes, spoons, baby food packages. Marcel took one package and shook it. Empty.
A plastic sleeve was taped around the dead man’s neck. Ramses found a passport inside. The owner thought it was a goo
d idea to leave his ID.
For proper burial services, a thought crossed Ramses’s mind.
He gave the document to Andy, who flipped through the pages. “Married. One kid registered to his name. Home address.”
“My God,” Goran said, looking around. “First, they had run out of food. The poor boy was biting himself because he was hungry.”
Ramses nodded gravely. “And then they all froze to death.”
They looked around. The room was chock-full of assorted weaponry. There were six shotguns on another desk. Four AK-47s by the wall. Boxes on the desk and under it.
“With all the guns they had here,” Steve said with grief in his voice. “It’s a shame, man. It’s so fucking sad.”
A red rose stood in a vase. The cold helped to preserve it.
“Guns and Roses.” Andy took the flower out and sniffed it. “Mom and dad business. He was selling guns. She was selling roses.”
“Hey,” Goran said. “Where does that door lead?” He pointed at the door at the back of the office.
Ramses approached the door, pressed his ear to it and listened. Everything seemed to be okay. He turned the handle, and darkness glanced at him out of the room.
“Steve,” he said. “Hand me your flashlight. Mine has a low battery power.”
Steve held a light for him. There was a staircase leading down into the basement.
“All right,” Ramses said. “You stay put. I won’t be a minute.”
“Be careful out there,” Andy said.
Ramses looked back and smiled. “I was born careful.”
It took more than a minute. Finally, Ramses came back running, his eyes glistening with joy. In spite of the drama scene they had just observed.
“You won’t fucking believe it! It’s like a pharaoh’s tomb there, full of treasures.”
They hastened downstairs. There was a wide hallway in the basement lined with storerooms with iron doors. All the doors were open. They looked into the nearest one. Crates. Stacks upon stacks of crates. Some of the crates were open. Cardboard packages inside. Shells. Various calibers. They peeked into the others. Guns, hunting knives, bows, arrows, crossbows, binoculars, pennants, army boots, khaki trousers, shotguns. The merchandise.
Steve whistled and said, “Paydirt.”
EIGHTEEN
Ksenia went along the hallway to the ad hoc infirmary, which had been set up on the thirteenth floor in one of the suites. It had a fireplace, so it was warm there. There were five patients under Dr. Erich Brodde’s treatment. He was short of medical supplies and understaffed. An old woman who was a former cloakroom attendant, a chambermaid and the parents of his small patients acted as nurses and were of great help.
He invited Ksenia from time to time to interpret for him.
She opened the suite door and looked around. Three kids lying in the bed with their surgical masks on. They were down with the flu. There was one elderly woman with diabetes. And one ex-sailor who had managed to get booze somewhere to celebrate Motherland’s Defenders’ Day so vigorously that he had slipped on the staircase and hit his head.
The old German was treating a ten-year-old boy who had a terrible cough. With every cough, his body jerked with convulsions. His black curly hair was plastered to his wet forehead. He was going blue in the face and breathing hard.
“There,” Dr. Brodde said, applying a cold compress on the boy’s forehead. “Ja, this must help you, Junge.”
The boy looked at Ksenia who stood nearby, a question in his face.
“The doctor said this will help you,” Ksenia translated Dr. Brodde’s words.
The little boy said nothing.
There was a knock on the door, and a tired-looking woman came in. Ludmila, the boy’s mother. She had brought a pile of wood, which she placed by the fireplace. She went across the room and sat near her son.
“Nein,” Dr. Brodde said to her. “Quarantine.”
Ksenia took the woman by her elbow and led out of the room. The doctor went out after them.
“Ludmila,” Dr. Brodde said to the woman. “I’m worried about your son. His body temperature is going up. It’s 41 degrees Celsius now.”
“Oh my God,” Ludmila said after hearing Ksenia’s translation. She was on the verge of crying. “What shall we do?”
“I can bring the fever down, but only temporarily. The boy needs proper medication and treatment. It’s really a simple illness, which can be cured in a couple of days. But we’re doing what we can do. Hopefully, the help is on the way. Let’s wait till our scavenging hunters come back in the morning.”
Ludmila sat on the couch in the hallway. “You really can help my son? You, a priest?”
“Before I became a priest, I was a physician. I went to a good medical school in Hamburg. Then I obtained a surgeon’s diploma in Leiden, the Netherlands.”
“Please help my little boy.” The woman was crying now. There was pleading in her eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do without him.”
She stood up and went away, sobbing.
Dr. Brodde heaved a heavy sigh. “How is your leg, Miss?” he asked Ksenia.
“It’s better now. Though I still limp a bit. Don’t worry about me at all.”
“You need to see a good orthopedist.”
“In our situation, even a bad one will do.” Ksenia managed a tired smile.
A young man came up, his hand pressed to his cheek. His face was a grimace of pain. A toothache patient.
“Have you brought the vodka?” Dr. Brodde asked him.
The man nodded. He fumbled in his gray coat pocket and took out a bottle.
“The only anesthetics we can get our hands on here,” Dr. Brodde said to Ksenia.
“Did they teach you this in Hamburg?” Ksenia asked.
A chambermaid brought out a steaming dish with pliers in it and a Turkish towel on her shoulder and put all this on the couch.
Dr. Brodde took the pliers and turned to Ksenia. “I’m afraid this is not something for a young lady to watch.”
The man looked at the German with despair. There was animal fear in his eyes.
As Ksenia went away, she heard a blood-chilling shrill. It was still ringing in her ears when she came to the ballroom. She heard hurried footsteps behind. Ingvar. His silly Russian hat was still on.
“Hey, Ksenia,” Ingvar said. “What is a beautiful girl like you doing alone on an evening like this?”
“I’m not alone.”
“Wow, you’re fast,” Ingvar said. “Your Tutankhamen friend went hunting in the stone jungles, and you’ve already found someone to keep you warm tonight, eh?”
Ksenia rolled her eyes. The guy was really getting on her nerves. “Ramses is not my boyfriend, all right?”
“Great,” Ingvar said. “Then why not spend the night with me? I’ll keep you safe from that maniac who’s walking around.”
“Like I told you, I’m not alone.”
“Come on! Who is he?”
“Makarov,” Ksenia said.
“Makarov?” There was a surprise in the Swede’s face. “Who the hell is this lucky guy? Do I know him?”
Ksenia slipped her hand under her sweater and pulled out her father’s pistol. She cocked it and pressed it to Ingvar’s groin. “You better not. ‘Cause he’s a hot guy. So hot, that he spits fire when he gets pissed off.”
“Chillax, okay?” Ingvar said. The flaps of his hat jumped up and down. “I’ve come in peace.”
Ksenia motioned with her gun. “Turn around.”
Slowly, with a hesitation, Ingvar did as he had been told. She shoved the gun between the man’s jeans-clad buttocks and whispered in his ear. “Now listen to me, Sex Dinosaur, or I’ll make you go extinct in no time. It’s just not the right time and place. I lost my dad last week. All I want now is to be left alone to my thoughts for a while.”
“All right, all right,” Ingvar said. “That’s fine with me.”
“Now I’ll go to Diana to see if she needs help in the ballroom, and I�
��d recommend you to find something useful to do, too. For a change. And please be nice to people. Or else my old friend Makarov will make an extra hole in your ass. Capisce?”
Ingvar half-closed his eyes and licked his lips. “Oh, Ksenia. You must be a dream when it comes to role-playing games.”
“Yep. In your dreams.”
She whipped his ass with the butt of the gun.
Ingvar screamed in pain. “Enough! I got it. But think about it—you may never get another fuck in all this Armageddon hullabaloo.”
She tucked the gun under her belt and covered it with the sweater. “Sometimes, it’s better to starve to death than to eat from a garbage can.”
She turned around and strode quickly along the hallway.
“See you around, babe,” Ingvar said rubbing the back of his jeans.
She flipped him the bird. “Jerk!”
***
Diana was removing the St. Valentine Day decorations off the walls in the ballroom. The preparations for the farewell banquet had a festive nature. A celebration of life amidst death.
Ksenia felt the burning void inside her. She recalled her St. Valentine’s Day from the last week. She had a feeling that many years had passed since then. She was with her boyfriend Sergei in his apartment. He had been living alone for the latest week: his parents were on a vacation trip to Athens. He was a son of very rich people. But Ksenia liked Sergei not because of that. He was handsome, for one thing, and he was a serious young man. He was going to start his own business after graduating from an elite university in Moscow this year.
They sat in a spacious living room. A table for two. Lit candles. Wine glasses. An album of “Enigma” was on. Her favorite music. He offered her to taste a delicious dish, the name of which she had never heard. Then he asked her to have a dance with him. The music was slow. She pressed her body, clad in a simple but beautiful dress, to him. She really felt cozy with him.
She could predict what would happen later in the evening, and she was afraid of it. Though she liked this young man, she was not ready for sex with a person she had been dating for a couple of months only. She was not a virgin, but she never jumped into bed even on the tenth date.
The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad Page 19