The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad

by Hasanov, Oleg

  The Russians looked at each other. The cuffs were taken off, and Ramses was escorted out by the Sports Cap. The barman followed them.

  They threaded their way along the corridor. Ramses’s feet were numb with cold.

  It was not so dark in the toilet. The timid sunrays showed him the way. Roman remained standing in the doorway, his flashlight never leaving Ramses.

  “Be quick, nigger,” Roman said. “I’m impatient to beat the crap out of you.”

  Ramses scanned the room. Five stalls, a row of urinals along the wall. A window. Not barred. But the handle was removed. It was on the second floor but the window was made of plastic. So he would spend some time trying to break it.

  He went into the farthest stall, unzipped his pants and pissed into the bowl. He came up with a solution before his torrent had faded. He zipped up and took the lid of the toilet tank off. It was solid and heavy. He smashed it against the toilet bowl. The lid was barely damaged, but the bowl cracked into pieces.

  “Fuck!” Ramses shouted. “Oh God, it hurts!”

  “What the fuck are you doing there?” Roman said. “Shitting bricks?” He laughed.

  Ramses grabbed the sharpest shard, lay down on the cold tile floor and called with a moan, “Please, help me, man. I can’t get up.”

  “What now?” Roman said.

  The Sports Cap got alert. He pointed his weapon at the darkness but hesitated to walk in.

  “Come on, nigger,” Roman said. “You don’t want to miss all the fun.”

  Nothing doing.

  Roman gave the Sports Cap his torch and asked him to step into the room. The man walked in and saw Ramses lying on the floor. He was not moving. The toilet bowl was totally crashed.

  The Sports Cap bent down to check his pulse as Ramses snapped open his eyes and drove the shard he was hiding under his thigh into the man’s throat. The Sports Cap gagged and slumped to his knees. Ramses twisted the shard in the wound and intercepted the handgun.

  Roman rushed in and started shooting.

  Still lying on the floor, Ramses used the man’s body as the shield. The barman’s shots hit the man’s back. Then Ramses aimed his gun and started shooting, too. Roman ducked behind a wall. Then he sprinted across the room toward the exit.

  Ramses sprang to his feet. He had about a minute to get away before the barman would call for help. Then he would be caught again. Or killed like a dog. He grabbed the toilet lid and smashed the window glass with it. The hit left a wide dent in the glass and a constellation of cracks. But the glass did not break.

  He could hear hurried footsteps and shouts from the corridor. He hit the glass again and again and the lower part of the glass gave in. The cold air seeped in. The upper portion of the glass hung like a guillotine. The footsteps were near. Ramses stood on the windowsill and crouched under the glass shards through the hole.

  Four armed men entered the room, their flashlights piercing the dark, their guns ready to blaze, as Ramses ducked into the hole in the window. He dropped the gun on the ground without looking and grabbed the lower window frame with his hands. The shards of glass, which stuck from the lower part cut his fingers and palm. Meanwhile, his feet were trying to find some kind of support on the wall beneath the window. The wall was slippery. The glass started crumbling above him as the shooters were destroying the window. Ramses looked briefly down, pushed his feet off the wall and let go of the window frame.

  The fall was quick and painful. He landed in a trash container. The blow knocked the wind out of him, and he gasped. He glanced up and saw two of his followers aiming their guns through the broken window. He tried to get up but he couldn’t get his right leg out. It got stuck in the trash. The bullets rained down on the container. He looked frantically around, panic rising in his chest. The container lid was held up by a wooden stick.

  Without giving it much thought, he used his left leg and kicked the stick away. The container lid fell down on him with a terrible metallic crash.

  The rain of bullets diminished and then stopped. Ramses caught his breath. He risked lifting the lid just for a crack. The window on the first floor was open, and a man was pointing his gun at him. Bullets started banging again.

  Trapped!

  There was an iron grille on that window. So no one would get out of it. But they could still go downstairs and pin him in this stinking place.

  His mind was racing. First, he focused on his leg. He dragged it out of the garbage. The foot was wet. Ramses touched the liquid with his hand and put it to his nose. Sauce. He felt sick but he stifled the puke. Thank God he was not bleeding.

  Then he heard a metallic clank and after a bit of silence, there was an ear-splitting explosion on the ground near the container. A hand grenade. He was lucky this one bounced away and missed him. Now things were getting harder for him. There was another clank and immediate explosion. In a split second the lid crumpled inwards but held. His head was ringing and he could not hear anything. He was disoriented. He had a moment of panic and he tried to push the lid up. It would not budge. He was stuck here.

  In a helpless anger, he kicked the side of the container, and it moved a bit. He gave it another kick. No avail. The container was not so heavy, and he could move it by shaking it, maybe overturn it. Which he eventually did.

  He kicked and kicked the side until the container overbalanced and fell over to the side. The lid smashed open. But only for about a foot and a half. He took off his coat to squeeze through the gap and rolled out into the snow. He started crawling on the snow-covered ground as he heard moaning of a living dead above him.

  There was a gunshot, and the zombie sprawled on the ground with a hole in its head.

  “Not so fast, Mumbo Jumbo,” Gavrilov said.

  ***

  Back in the poolroom, Gavrilov was cleaning a pool cue shaft with a cue lathe. Ramses stood, his chest on the pool table, his pants down, his buttocks spread, a gun to his head. Four men were holding him firmly.

  “You been naughty,” Gavrilov said. “You been a very bad boy. And now it is time for a little punishment.”

  He smashed the cue across the naked buttocks. Ramses clamped his lips to stifle a scream. His knees buckled, but he was returned to his previous position by force. Gavrilov hit again, harder. Ramses growled like a bull, more because of dull anger than in pain.

  “You’re a sick bastard,” Ramses said. “You’re gonna fucking regret it.”

  Gavrilov motioned with his head, and the fat guy brought him a backpack. He broke into peals of crazy laughter.

  Gavrilov opened the backpack and took out a black plastic bag.

  “You want to know how this plague started?” Gavrilov asked.

  Ramses didn’t say anything.

  Gavrilov took something out and put it on the green velvet of the table before Ramses’s face. It was a cut off human head. The corpse’s head had red eyes with busted veins and dark blue lips. Ramses felt a strong smell of decay.

  “His name was Pavel something,” Gavrilov said. “All this apocalyptic shit started because of this guy. But I have to thank him. He gave me freedom. In a way. I would be still in prison if it were not for him. He was a forester, as far as I know. The meteorite crashed down into a lake a couple of miles from his house. He went to check it out. But the virus was already in the air. It is still in the air.”

  Roman asked, “Why don’t we get the virus and not turn into those dead motherfuckers?”

  “Now that is the trickiest part. The forester had been bitten by his dog some days before. It was sick with rabies. The rabies shit got mixed with the meteorite shit and now we have this zombie shit.”

  Ramses tried to wander away in his thoughts but he came back to thinking about the first time he was in such an embarrassing situation. When he was body searched by customs officials on the Mexican border. He used to be a drug courier for a couple years and was never caught. Ironically, that summer he went to Mexico just for a vacation trip. Somebody had probably snitched, but he was inno
cent.

  “Now this thing here,” Gavrilov continued, tapping the head with the cue, “Patient Zero they call him, probably costs millions of dollars now. It is still packed with those germs, you know, and the military want to use it as an antidote. Antidote my ass! I bet they are going to make a bioweapon.”

  Gavrilov stopped talking and stuck the cue into Ramses’s anus. Ramses clenched his fists and looked down on the green velvet.

  “You know what?” Gavrilov said, taking the cue away. “I will spare your ass. And I will let you go. A sign of mercy, you know. You are not even going to die. Technically. You will become a walking sack of rot. Until you rot away. We have no use for you anymore. We got guns. We got people. We know where your friends are holed up. You have become a pain in the ass. I’m bored with you, Mumbo Jumbo. But you still have a potency to entertain me. At least, for a while.”

  Gavrilov took the head by the hair and put it close to Ramses.

  “Kiss it,” Gavrilov said.

  Ramses backed away from the head, but Gavrilov’s minions held him in a firm grip.

  “I said, kiss him,” Gavrilov said.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Ramses said.

  They brought a teenage girl. Her hands were tied behind her back with a rope. The mascara on her face was smeared. She had been crying. Ramses hadn’t seen her before. These bastards seemed to hold prisoners in this building. Young girls. Whom they probably raped. The girl started crying again. And kicking. The thugs held her tight.

  Lena laughed. She was holding a cigarette holder between her lips. Roman stood, his arms folded on his chest, enjoying the show.

  “She’s going to kiss it first then,” Gavrilov said.

  “Let her go,” Ramses said. “I’ll do it.”

  Gavrilov turned to him. “Oh, we have a hero here.”

  He smiled and leaned to him. There was a strong smell of alcohol on his breath. He whispered in his ear, “You like her? Would you like to have a go at her, huh? Before you both die?”

  “No,” Ramses said. “But I won’t refuse from a good shot of tequila before I go. Do you have a tequila, Roman?” His voice was unusually calm.

  Roman unfolded his arms. He looked surprised, too. “This question is an offense to me.”

  He sauntered behind the bar counter, took a bottle from the shelf and a glass. He came back to them, a wide smile on his face.

  He balanced the glass on the table edge and opened the bottle. He poured the glass to the rim.

  “It’s on the house, my friend,” he said. “Sorry, no lemons—we’ve run out of them days ago.”

  Ramses said, “Take the cuffs off.”

  Roman said, “No way, man. We know perfectly well what you’re capable of without the cuffs.”

  “What up?” Ramses asked. “You’re afraid of a naked unarmed nigger?”

  Gavrilov smiled and asked Carp to remove the handcuffs. Reluctantly, Karpov took off the cuffs.

  The thugs stepped away and surrounded Ramses in a circle.

  “Let the man have his tequila,” Gavrilov said. “He is freezing already.”

  Ramses took the glass, breathed out loudly and downed the shot in one go. He slammed the glass down and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  “Good,” Gavrilov said. “Now show us you are a good kisser.”

  He pressed the stinking head to Ramses’s face. Ramses leaned and kissed briefly the dead man’s lips. The feeling was cold.

  “I do not believe you,” Gavrilov said. “It is what Stanislavsky used to say, the prominent theoretician of theater. Show me more passion!”

  Ramses kissed the lips for a longer time.

  “That is more like it!” Gavrilov exclaimed.

  “Well, how does it feel?” Roman asked. “The kiss of death.”

  Ramses bit a piece of the cheek off the dead head and spat the bloody morsel in Roman’s face. The man screamed. They expected something from Ramses but certainly not this.

  “Feel for yourself, sumbitch!” Ramses said.

  He grabbed the tequila bottle, knocked over two thugs with his shoulder and ran toward the door.

  The exit was free. Gunshots followed him at the heels. Ramses ran like hell along the corridor. On his run, he gulped from the bottle and rinsed his mouth. He spat on the floor and took another gulp. He stopped for a couple seconds and used the rest of the drink to wash his lips and his face.

  He ran downstairs to the first floor. The Afghan appeared around the corner, and Ramses hid behind a big leafy pot plant. As the man approached it, Ramses smashed the bottle across his face. The guy rolled his eyes and lost consciousness, blood gushing from his temple. Ramses caught him in midair and dragged the body behind the pot plant. He cast a quick glance at the man’s clothes. His size but no time! His followers stormed into the hall. Ramses ran out into the cold. Bullets whistled past him from both stories. He ran in a crazy zigzag across the street. Avoiding the bullets and the grabbing hands of the zombies.

  The cold was killing. It was scratching his face, biting his lungs, burning his feet, and hitting his stomach and groin like a hammer.

  At the corner, he stopped for a brief second to catch his breath and looked around. There was some kind of a store in front of him. He was shivering with cold. A couple more minutes and he would freeze to death here.

  A hand covered his mouth from behind.

  Ramses grabbed the hand and executed a throw over his shoulder. The man who landed on the snow in front of him was Goran.

  “Fuck,” Ramses said. “It’s you.” He exhaled loudly.

  Goran looked at Ramses from head to foot. “Yep, that club is a bad place. All the locals know about it.”

  ***

  Roman wiped his face with a towel.

  “Son of a bitch!” he said. He blinked. His eyes were getting a little scratchy. He hoped it was because of the tequila.

  Everyone walked away far from him.

  “Shit, man,” Lena said, a terrified look on her face. “I think you got it.”

  Roman turned to her. “What are you talking about, bitch?”

  “Nothing,” she said and turned away.

  “Look me in the eye when I talk to you!”

  She walked away without a word and sat on a bar stool. She popped a bubble gum nervously.

  “She’s right, boss,” the old zek said. “You’ve caught the bug. Look in the mirror yourself.”

  Roman went behind the bar counter and took a look at the mirror surface of the wall between the shelves. His eyes were red like a lobster’s.

  “Fuck!” he shouted and hit the glass. A web of cracks spread across it.

  Lena started laughing hysterically at him. “That will serve you just well, asshole.”

  He ran up to Lena and slapped her across her face. Her head jerked back, but she didn’t stop laughing. In a bout of blind rage, he hit her again. Then he grabbed her arm and bit her in the wrist. Her eyes widened with shock and pain. She hammered his chest and face with her fists, hollering and covering him with obscenities. She scratched his face, and he knocked her down on the floor.

  “Stupid whore,” he said and kicked her in the stomach.

  Gavrilov got off the couch he was sitting on and applauded. “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! What passion! What a drama! Well, in this fucking shit I do believe! Stanislavsky would be fucking proud of you.”

  Then he raised his handgun slowly and shot them both in the head.

  “But enough,” he said in a tired voice. He came up to the counter and placed the gun there. “Let us have some more drinks and catch some sleep. We have a busy day ahead.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Litvakov heard gunshots as he was approaching the kindergarten. The dazzle of the pink morning sun was blinding him and he flipped the visor down. He saw a soldier barring his way. Litvakov had to halt and slide out of the car. He recognized the soldier. He had shared cigarettes with him the day before. The soldier unslung his Kalashnikov from his shoulder. He was about twenty. Medium
height, Slavic features.

  The kindergarten was cordoned off by soldiers in yellow hazmat suits. They did not let the civilians come nearer than ten yards to the kindergarten gates. One yelling, crying, hysterical woman had to be forced away.

  “I’m sorry, Colonel,” the soldier said, “but you can’t pass through.”

  Litvakov said, “My wife and son are in there.”

  “Sorry,” the soldier said. “Not anymore. There was an outbreak.”

  “That’s bullshit. The perimeter is heavily secured. How could that happen?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  Litvakov drew his gun. He checked its works and walked forward. “I’m going to find that out. I’m taking all responsibility.”

  “Nobody goes through.” the soldier said. “It’s an order. If you go inside, you will be put under quarantine. You’ll have to be processed for three days. You know the rules.”

  “Whose order is this? I’m the one giving out orders here.”

  “The special unit commandment said so. No one must approach that building.”

  Then the soldier looked around and whispered, “Hit me, Comrade Colonel. Then you can go.”

  Litvakov said, “State your name.”

  “Private Vladislav Ryabtsev, Comrade Colonel.”

  Litvakov nodded. “Thank you, Ryabtsev.”

  He hit the guy in the left side of his face. Not hard enough to crack the jawbone but hard enough to leave a bruise. The soldier gave a yell of pain and fell on the snow like a good stuntman.

  Litvakov ran to the fence and climbed over it.

  A kid stumbled from around a little wooden train on the playground. The chubby little boy who loved stories about magic and dragons and treasures. His steps were noiseless. Like those of a cat. He had nothing but a T-shirt and an underwear on. The T-shirt smeared red. Blood. Still fresh. There was a picture of Smaug on the T-shirt, and it said I AM KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN. The cold was severe but not for this boy now.

  Litvakov hesitated for a moment. The boy snarled and lunged at him. Litvakov raised his gun and loaded the boy’s head with lead.

  Then he raced across the yard to the front door. He ran up the porch steps, fast like a blizzard.