Burying a person is hard, but digging him up is harder. He appears little by little—first his hands, then his body…and that awful smell. And it hits you he’s really dead. Fighting the nausea, I checked the pockets of his overalls. There were his keys, along with his wallet and a bag of some white powder. Poor guy. He was a dick, but he didn’t deserve to end up like this. No one does.
I covered him up again and went back into his house. The best discovery I made was that the house used bottled gas to heat water. One of bottles was still full. After twenty days with no hot water, a bath sounded like a dream. I filled the tub to the brim, grabbed a good bottle of wine from my house, and soaked all Sunday afternoon in a huge cloud of steam. I’d earned it. I got the feeling it’d be a long time before I did that again. The next few weeks will be intense…if I live that long.
I’ve halfway figured out how to get out of here and not get eaten alive before I get past the front door. My plan still has a lot of loose ends, but I think they can be solved. I’ve had almost three days to relax, eat well, and build up my strength. Now it’s time to act.
ENTRY 45
February 7, 1:12 p.m.
It’s hard to decide what to take when you know you won’t be back for a long time. It’s even more complicated when your life depends on what you take. Any extras were out. I piled my survival kit, everything I considered essential, on the living room floor. I have a sixty-liter water-resistant backpack I used to take scuba diving. It still smells like the ocean and reminds me of all the good times I had with my wife. I also have a sleeping bag and the heavy coat I got off the dead soldier. I took my laptop, the shortwave radio, some clothes, an extra pair of shoes, and the freeze-dried food from Miguel’s house. I also threw in the army first-aid kit with the morphine, antibiotics, and analgesics; a five-liter jug of fresh water; a small toiletry bag; some photographs I couldn’t leave behind; a notebook and some pens; my camera; and all the batteries in the house. The backpack was filled to the top. In a smaller bag that clipped on to the backpack, I packed all the Glock and Zavala ammunition and a couple of flashlights. One of the flashlights was filled with xenon. I used to use it on night dives. It devours batteries, but it’s bright as a lighthouse. All that weighed a ton.
With all that weight, I moved at a snail’s pace. I had to carry all this to my escape vehicle. I knew that the key to my survival would be agility, but I couldn’t do without any of these things. On top of that, I had to carry the rifle, the pistol, and the speargun slung across my chest, as well as a carrier with a frightened Persian cat inside. I’d only have one hand free to fight off those monsters. It was going to be awkward. I sure as shit couldn’t fight off a bunch of them.
Miguel’s street was full of those things. Two or three dozen of them wandered up and down, attracted by the shots from the other day. The scene from my window was disgusting. About thirty bodies with ghastly wounds, their clothes stiff with dry blood, swayed aimlessly in the road. A handful of them banged on my door. I saw no way to clear the street of those monsters so I could reach Miguel’s vehicles parked out front. There were too many of them, and they were too scattered for the clanging-bear strategy to work this time.
The scene on my street was slightly different. Out of the big group that had been milling around, I could only see four from my window. Most of them had gone to Miguel’s street the other day when they heard him shooting. That’s so ironic. I was getting a shot at survival, thanks to his pointless death. The four on my street were clustered around my front gate. I had to figure how to move them away from there. I thought I knew how to do it, but I’d only get one shot. If I failed, I was screwed.
Once everything was packed, I set the bags in the entranceway, next to the front gate. Lucullus was very nervous. It took a lot of scratching behind his ears and whispers to persuade him to get into his carrier. He’s never liked it. He always sits in the passenger seat. But I couldn’t risk carrying the cat in one arm with those things after us. Sorry, Lucullus. If those creatures caught me, it’d mean certain death for you, my little friend. You’d have no way to escape.
I pulled on the wetsuit and checked the three guns. I walked through the house one last time, my eyes gliding over everything that was so familiar. I might not ever see it again. My whole life was here. I was setting off for an unknown destination with no assurance I’d be alive in half an hour. It was crazy. My living room, my kitchen, my study (I never painted it a color I really liked), the couch my little roommate scratched up. I went up to the attic in tears and looked around. I grabbed one of my wife’s old sweaters. When she died, I’d packed away all her things. Now I was abandoning them forever.
I wiped my tears and headed to the backyard to set my plan in motion. The next time I write in this journal I’ll describe what I did. If I don’t write any more…well, obviously, something went wrong and there’s a new undead walking around town in a wetsuit. But I won’t go down without a fight. I’m terrified—but I’m determined.
ENTRY 46
February 7, 9:01 p.m.
I’m alive. Exhausted, horrified, and in shock—but alive. Lucullus is fine too, even better than I am. We’ve taken refuge in a fairly safe place. I lost some supplies along the way, but I’m still battle-ready. My God, there are thousands of those things! I should write all about it right now, but I’m exhausted. I’ll write some more tomorrow, after I’ve gotten some rest.
Today, I shot a gun for the first time in my life. I’m sure it won’t be the last.
ENTRY 47
February 8, 12:39 p.m.
The winter sun in Galicia is really tepid. Some people would say it’s weak. Its caressing rays aren’t very strong on icy mornings like today, but at least it warms your bones a little. Better than nothing. Lucullus and I are lying on the roof of our little makeshift shelter, hoping to get on with our journey. As we ate a breakfast of beans from self-heating cans, images of the terrible day we had yesterday replayed over and over in my mind.
It was unbelievably terrifying. Yet I feel more alive now than I have for three weeks. When I went over the wall into my neighbor’s yard, I wasn’t sure my plan would work. The further I got into it, the more doubts I had. But I couldn’t turn back. I raced across Miguel’s yard into his pitch-black house. Those things were all riled up. Somehow, they knew I was on the other side. A couple of them had even made it through the front gate and were pounding on the boarded-up windows downstairs. The noise was deafening. I carefully climbed the stairs and opened the bedroom window; I was sure they couldn’t see me up there. Down below was Miguel’s delivery van, parked right out in front. He had complained several times that junkies tried to break into it, looking for amphetamines or Rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug, even though he didn’t distribute those drugs. So he installed a powerful alarm in the van. It woke me up many nights when he accidentally tripped it. I wanted to see how those things reacted to all that honking.
I gripped the Zavala rifle, loaded two cartridges, then calmly aimed at the van. The mob under the window kept on banging on the door, unaware I was right above them. I fired. The blast from the rifle sounded like a cannon in the morning silence, amplified by the sound of the van’s windshield bursting into a million pieces.