“Hi! Did you see Olya?” Oren asked.
Andy shook his head. “Who is she?”
“Olga Rudakova? Long wavy hair? A ballet dancer?”
“No, we’ve just arrived,” Andy said. “What has happened?”
“There was a breach down in the basement,” Ivan said. “After the chopper hit the building. We couldn’t restrain it. Below Level 10, it is all hell.”
“We’ve been there,” Andy said. “Looks like heaven is what’s left for us.”
“Do you have any bites or scratches?” Oren asked.
Andy and Marcel shook their heads and started climbing the barricade to get to the other side.
“Wait!” Oren said. “You can’t go in here. At least not until fifteen minutes have passed. We’re sorry but it’s just a precaution.”
“Sorry, boss,” Ivan said and shrugged.
“Okay,” Andy said. He pulled a chair out of the pile and sat down. He could use some rest anyway.
Marcel leaned his back on the wall.
“Ivan,” Andy called. “Tell me about the current situation in the building.”
The guard cleared his throat and spoke as if he was in a briefing. “The situation is out of control, sir. We’re losing it. Most levels are taken by the infected ones. That makes over two hundred deadheads out there. We’re holding the upper levels, though. Good news is we stopped the fire from spreading.”
All this sounded surrealistic to Andy.
“What about Diana?” Andy said. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” Ivan said. “It was a chaos down there. Everyone is scattered all over the building.”
Andy lowered his head and sighed. They lapsed into silence for about fifteen minutes.
Andy looked at his watch. “Okay. Time’s up. We’re not infected as you can see.”
Andy and Marcel climbed over the barricade. Ivan held his hand to help them.
Andy heard a distant cry. Somewhere in one of the corridors. A woman was sobbing. The voice was approaching.
“Masha?” the voice called.
Oren touched Andy’s shoulder. “Wait. This is Olga’s voice.”
In a minute, the voice was more distinct. “Masha? Where are you? Please, somebody, help me find my girl.”
“Who’s Masha?” Andy whispered.
“That’s her daughter’s name,” Oren said. “But she’s not here in the building. Or anywhere in the city. She went to the country with her dad.”
Oren put his foot on a nightstand. “I must get her.”
Ivan said, “No. We stay here. This barricade is our last outpost.”
Andy drew his gun and nodded at Marcel. Marcel unshouldered his AK-47.
The sun was going down, and shadows were creeping into the corridor. They heard footsteps. Somebody was shuffling their way around the corner. The men tensed. Oren froze as a little girl stepped into the receding pool of sunlight. The girl was a tiny little thing about five years old. She was wearing a dirty blue coat and a yellow winter hat. Her chin and lips were smeared with blood.
A woman appeared behind her back. Olga Rudakova.
“There you are, Masha!” she said, squinting in the sunlight looking at the girl and smiled.
She was dizzy. She had been taking sleeping pills before she left her room, hardly knowing whether it was morning or night. She was still under the influence of pills, and their effect had not worn out. Her vision was dim.
“Never stray away too far from me! Never! You hear me, honey?”
The zombie girl locked her parched lips and set her eyes on the walking and talking food in front of her. There was some hungry curiosity in her eyes.
Olga made a step forward, a smile on her face. She extended her arms. “Now come to Mommy.”
“No, Olya, stop!” Oren shouted. “Don’t go near her!”
Olga did not pay any attention to him, her gaze focused on the girl.
“It’s not Masha!”
The little monster tilted her head turning from the shouting man to the cooing woman and issued a long moan, her mouth a gaping wound.
Marcel took aim but Oren struck the barrel with his elbow. There was a short burst of fire, and Marcel’s assault rifle discharged into a wall. The dry clicks of the empty weapon made Marcel look at the man with hatred.
Oren grabbed the nightstand and threw it out of his way. He climbed over a sofa and tumbled to the floor. When he struggled to his feet, he saw it was too late. A wave of paralysis washed over him.
Olga stepped closer to the girl. “Come here, sweetie!”
She wrapped the child in her embrace. The girl uttered a sound like a cat before getting a meal and stuck her teeth in Olga’s leg. She bit all the way through Olga’s thick stockings and tore a huge piece of flesh off the woman’s leg right above her knee. Olga screamed and stepped away from the girl. There was a terror in her eyes. She seemed to regain her consciousness all at once, and now she understood what was happening. The girl lunged at her again, and Olga pushed her away with her foot. The girl fell down on her fanny but didn’t cry. She scrambled to her feet instead and walked toward her like an automaton.
Oren stood between Olga and the girl. Swinging the table leg in his hand. The little zombie snarled.
Oren was alert, but he didn’t manage to register that moment, when the monster dashed at him, her small arms outstretched. Oren fell down. The zombie ripped his shirt. The buttons flew away in a spray. Oren drove the table leg into the undead girl’s mouth. The girl’s body twitched and fell on the carpeted floor with a soft thump.
“She bit me,” Olga cried, sitting on the floor. She showed her bloodstained leg. “I might get infected, too.”
Oren looked at the little girl’s body. Dumbstruck.
Olga shouted, “Can’t you do something?! I’ve been bitten! I don’t want to die!”
Andy fumbled under his coat and put his palm on his gun.
Olga sat on the floor, blood gushing from the wound. Andy raised his handgun at her.
“Put it away!” Oren said. He stood up and shielded Olga with his chest.
“She was bitten,” Andy said. “We have to finish her off now.”
“No,” Oren said. “I’ll help her. I’m a medic.”
He urged her to get up but she could not stand. “I can’t walk.”
He picked her up to carry her over the barricade.
“Don’t even think about it,” Andy said, having him at the gunpoint. “If you come any closer, I’ll let all the bullets loose.”
“Please,” Oren said. “Let me go through.”
“You heard me, pal,” Andy said.
“Ivan, tell him,” Oren pleaded. “She’s bleeding.”
“Sorry,” Ivan said. “You know the rules.”
Sobbing, Oren put his girlfriend on the floor and sat nearby. He ripped the sleeve off his shirt and made a wound dressing.
“I don’t want to die, Max,” Olga said.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Oren said and secured the dressing around Olga’s leg.
“I want to see my Masha.”
Oren gave no reply. He pulled her to himself.
Andy said, “Man, you’d better move away from her. She’s going to turn any minute now.”
Oren said nothing. He just sat there holding her head and caressing her hair.
Ten minutes passed. Andy peeked over the barricade. The couple was sitting in the same position.
“Max?” Andy called. “We’re leaving now.”
Oren didn’t reply, completely ignoring him. Now he was in that catatonic state as Olga had been in before.
“Suit yourself,” Andy said and turned around. In time to notice the zombie alert from behind. A crowd of zombies moved their way. He felt a sharp blade of panic slashing through him.
Oren gave a cry. Olga buried her fingers in the soft tissues of his stomach. He hit his fists against Olga’s bent back. The color drained from his face.
The undead were advancing. Andy had to
act quickly. He looked around, took the fire ax off the emergency rack hanging on the wall and hurried over the barricade. Oren lay on the floor, thrashing his feet while the crazed woman took a more comfortable position, devouring her dinner, and munching with delight. She pulled red and violet intestines out of the abdomen and clamped her teeth on them.
Marcel shot out the last bullets left in his AK-47 and started climbing over the piles of furniture.
“Hey, you!” Andy shouted.
The bad version of Olga turned to look at him. Her raspberry-colored eyes moved in the eye sockets like two rabid ferrets, sitting in two separate cages.
Andy swung the ax and hit the blunt edge of it against the undead woman’s shoulder. She jumped Andy. He lost his balance and fell. The ax fell right beside him. The infected one sat on his chest, squeezing almost all the oxygen from his lungs. Blood and saliva dripped from the creature’s chin onto Andy’s chest. Andy averted his face and moved away, and the ghastly fluids started pooling around his head.
The ghoul was about to stab her teeth into Andy’s face as he was thrown away with a mighty kick. He picked up the ax off the floor and smacked the creature in the face. More blood poured. Andy took a better swing and hit the monster in the forehead with the sharp edge. The blow cracked the skull. Bones and brain tissue flew in the air. Some of it landed on Andy’s coat. He wiped it off quickly. Ex-Olga’s fingers twitched, scraped along the linoleum and calmed down.
“Fuck!” Andy said, looking at the mess.
He looked around him. Oren was dead, his innards spilled all over the carpet. Olga was lying motionless with the crushed skull. Her blood was barely visible on the red carpet.
Andy turned around. The living dead were avoiding the obstacles, coming through. He put his ax down on the floor. He aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger immediately. His reflexes were working perfectly. The bullet struck the head of the nearest zombie male and the force of inertia made him hit the wall. He left a black smear on the wall. Another infected man came up closer and opened his mouth revealing two sets of saliva-dripping teeth and the black tongue. His mouth was a rictus of hunger. Andy drove another bullet between the creature’s eyes. The blast threw the brain tissue, blood, and hair out of her skull and plastered it all on the wall. The infected man fell down on the floor like a mannequin.
Andy concealed the empty gun in the holster and grabbed the ax. Now running was all that was left for Andy and Marcel.
***
They lost Level 10 that day. Then Level 11 and 12. The number of survivors was dwindling.
Later in the evening, Andy came into his penthouse bedroom. The room was quiet. He looked at Diana. She was lying motionless, her head tilted, and her eyes open and expressionless. He sat on the bed and touched her cautiously. No response. He moved his face closer to hers. She was not breathing. The chest was not rising or falling.
“Diana,” he whispered. Hoping she was in a strange kind of dream.
No response. He cupped his mouth with his hand, horror slowly rising in his chest.
“Diana? Can you hear me? It’s me!” he shook her by the shoulders. Her head dropped to one side like the head of a puppet. Her eyes were two lifeless marbles.
Andy began sobbing quietly. He wanted to touch her face but quickly withdrew his hand.
“You can touch her, she’s not infected,” a familiar voice said behind him.
Andy turned around. Dr. Brodde stood in the doorway.
Andy said nothing and turned to Diana.
“She said something,” Dr. Brodde said. “Before she died.”
He took out a piece of paper and read, “Something like “Okin” or “Sorkin. What could it possibly mean? I don’t speak Russian.”
“Sorokin,” Andy said in a shaky voice, wiping tears from his cheeks. “So it was him who killed her! Where is he?!”
They heard footsteps and turned around to see Alyona, Diana’s secretary.
“I’m afraid that we will never know,” she said.
Her face was pale, and she looked very exhausted. There was fear in her blue eyes.
“He escaped from the hotel,” she said.
“And took my car!” Andy said. “The son of a bitch!”
He struck his fist on the bed, and Diana’s body shook.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he said through his clenched teeth. “First thing in the morning. The evacuation center is our last hope. Or we all are going to die up here.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Alexei Litvakov slapped a fresh mag into his AK-47 and took a good aim at the male creature standing behind the fence. Litvakov stood within ten yards of the fence. It was not snowy, and there was no wind but the trick was to send the bullet right into the small hole between the wires in the wire mesh so that it could hit the target and didn’t ricochet.
The light of the setting sun was falling upon the monster’s face, revealing the bloodstained mouth, twisted in rage, and crimson red eyes full of hate. His claws shook the mesh violently. Litvakov had put the assault rifle on a single shot mode. Every bullet was precious. The strategy was to shoot the infected ones and not to accumulate too large crowds at the fences. Too much pressure on the fences would break the wire mesh. Anyway, there was an inner fence going around the camp. A higher and stronger one. And there was a fifty yards wide landmine field between the fences.
He squinted and let the bullet fly right through the space between the threads in the mesh and in the middle of the monster’s forehead. A flock of crows flew up in the air. The undead collapsed like a sack of rotten meat.
Litvakov moved the weapon slightly to the right and hit another target. One by one, methodically, Litvakov killed twenty-nine infected ones. A huge pile of bodies was left in the snow. He had always been a great shot, and his sight was still keen since his FSB days. He used to go to the shooting range every day back then.
In his mid-forties, he had been made to retire from the Federal Service of Security. His guess was some big boss’s son or daughter needed a soft berth in this system, and though his service record had been immaculate, he became redundant and expendable.
Litvakov remembered there was one last charge in the gun chamber. He took a better aim. He didn’t want to waste it. The closest target was hard to catch in the barrel sight because it was small like a midget. And fidgety too. A child. He hated killing infected kids, but there were no other deadheads in the vicinity. He held his breath for a second and blinked. The face of the child was familiar to him. Too damn familiar. It was Alyosha, no doubt. Tatyana’s son. Or used to be, rather. Tatyana was their neighbor from the second floor and a good friend of the family. The boy was seven years old and used to go to school. Two years older than his own son, Misha. Alyosha had been reported missing since the very first day of the Big Mayhem.
Litvakov put the Kalashnikov down and took out his cell phone. There was no signal, but calling was not what he was going to do. He turned the digital camera on and made a snapshot of the undead boy. The little monster’s image froze on the screen and was saved in a folder.
Litvakov aimed again and squeezed the trigger, and the last bullet put the boy out of his misery. Now Litvakov had run out of the ammo. He shouldered the weapon and glanced at his watch. Dinner time.
Litvakov unattached the mag and put it into his overcoat pocket. He turned to walk away from the fence as he spotted a tiny hole in the fence. A little animal like a cat or a small dog could squeeze in. Or a little infected kid.
He put on his gloves and walked down the zigzagging path lined with red flags stuck in the snowdrifts, which showed a safe way to avoid the hidden mines, and went through the gate to the camp.
“Thirty out of thirty,” he said to the sentry guard, an elderly bearded man. A pair of binoculars was hanging on the man’s neck. They had a bet Litvakov would shoot thirty zombies without wasting a single bullet.
Litvakov held out his hand. “My prize.”
“Damn, Comrade Colonel, it’s definitely yo
ur day today,” said the Beard and went into his inner pocket. He came out with a pack of cigarettes. Cigarettes were a very valuable commodity here. A hard currency just like in prison.
Litvakov took the pack and put it into his pocket. He slapped the man on the shoulder and sneered. “Like always, Stepanych, like always. Mend that little hole in the fence, by the way.”
“I will, thank you. Have a good rest of the day.”
Litvakov nodded and left the assault rifle with the guard. He got into his car, a yellow cab. Patrolling the camp territory was his duty. He glanced at the family photo on the dashboard and thought he was lucky indeed. He had managed to keep all his family members alive. His wife Svetlana, his little son Misha and teenage daughter Gerda.
It had been a week now that Alexei Litvakov and his family were in the emergency center. Actually, the territory of the emergency center, this little oasis of civilization, which housed a dozen five-storied apartment houses, a school, a kindergarten, and a supermarket, and which was now called “The Western Emergency Camp” had been their home for fifteen years. When the shit hit the fan, they were on the way out of the city. They were stopped at the border and taken back. Litvakov’s car had been confiscated. Actually, it was a taxicab. Since he had left the FSB service in the rank of a colonel, he earned his living as a taxi driver.
They put the Litvakovs under quarantine. In the beginning, the quarantine period was twenty-four hours long. In a couple days it was reduced to ten hours. As the time passed he was offered to leave, but he stayed. His family agreed. It was a safe place here.
People who chose to stay had to do something around the camp to earn their keep. Taking into account his experience and expertise, he was made an assistant to the Commandant of the camp. Back to keeping up law and order again. They gave him back his cab. Considering the size of the camp he could do without a car, but he felt safer having it.
There were more than a thousand residents in the camp. Two hundred people were shipped outside the camp every day.
At first, survivors came to the camp by car. Then on foot. The inflow of survivors dripped to an end as the camp was surrounded from all sides by the murdering beasts who tried to tear the fence down. The situation was the same in the other four emergency centers.
The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad Page 26