We drove around the building without seeing a single one of those monsters. Crunching on the dry gravel, we pulled the SUV up to the tunnel leading to the storeroom. Prit waited in the car with the engine running while I shot down the greased elevator cable to the bottom floor.
Sister Cecilia and Lucia were waiting near the elevator car, looking really worried. You could smell the smoke in the basement now. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw wisps of smoke floating in the light of the magnesium lamps.
I quickly brought them up to speed. A huge fire was approaching the hospital. There was no way to contain it; it would reach us in about an hour and would burn the place to the ground. Even the undead had fled as fast as their battered bodies would take them. We had to get out now, or we’d be burned to a crisp.
Their reaction was more serene than I’d imagined. I’d had a mental image of a meltdown or even an outright refusal to leave the safety of the basement, but they took the news in stride. Lucia went to retrieve the emergency backpacks we’d packed. The nun asked if there was a way to unlock the elevator and get it back in operation. “There are many things this nun can do,” she said, “but climbing up a cable covered in grease is not one of them. So move your butt, my son, or you’ll have to take me out the long way, and that would take too much time.”
I smiled, shaking my head, too impressed to speak. Those two were made of strong stuff. They had to be to have survived on their own for so long and endured that hell without getting devoured. Where big, hairy-chested men had collapsed like a broken spring in the face of difficulties, those women just gritted their teeth and kept on going. They were definitely not delicate, prim, and proper ladies. Just the opposite.
Just then, Lucia came back around the corner, piled high with two huge army backpacks and another one in tow. We’d packed everything we thought we’d need when it came time to leave—dozens of freeze-dried army ration packets, a huge first-aid kit that could treat a regiment, ammunition, flares, my shortwave radio (with no batteries, since a sailor on the Zaren Kibish had decided he needed them), liters of water, and God knows what else.
I heaved the heaviest backpack on to my back and helped Lucia put hers on. Despite Sister Cecilia’s indignant protests, I didn’t let her carry the third backpack. Lucia and I dragged it and the box with Lucullus in it. Things hadn’t gotten so bad that a woman her age had to carry a backpack that weighed as much as she did.
Before we got in the elevator, I took one last look around and felt a twinge of nostalgia. I’d lived an almost normal life there for months. It might’ve been the only safe place with electricity, water, food, and comfort for many miles. Not only did we have to leave, but it would be engulfed in flames in minutes, and there was nothing we could do about it. The thought that such a wonderful place was going to vanish made my heart sink. I smiled, bitterly aware of the strange irony underlying that thought. To us a dark, locked basement, full of food smells, the walls covered in damp condensation, seemed wonderful. That was fucked up.
I stuck the ivory rosary the nun had left on a table into my pocket and walked slowly to the elevator, where the women were waiting for me. I didn’t bother to turn the lights off. What did it matter? The Titanic had gone down with all its lights on too. And the orchestra playing on the deck.
After a quick inspection, I realized the elevator would be surprisingly easy to unblock. I just had to remove a huge soup ladle someone had wedged into the gap that allowed the door to close. When I pulled it out, the door snapped shut with a deafening metallic screech. Almost immediately, the cabin started to rise slowly, with very unsettling jolts.
Our ascent was slow and tense. Smoke filtered through the vents, drying our throats. Its acrid smell became more intense. I kept picturing dozens of those things waiting patiently at the top for the special of the day. I pictured dozens of eager mouths, outstretched arms reaching into the elevator to tear us apart and devour us.
I squeezed my eyes shut; I was breathing really fast. I couldn’t do a thing, not a damn thing…
A hand rested on my arm. I opened my eyes and saw the calm look on Lucia’s face. She squeezed my arm affectionately and whispered warmly in my ear, “Take it easy. Everything’ll be all right.” Then she gave my earlobe a playful, not-so-innocent nibble that almost sent me through the roof of the elevator. Naughty girl.
The elevator came to a stop with an even stronger jolt. The door was stuck, after not being used for so long. It wouldn’t open all the way, so we had to push on it. Once outside, we stopped, overwhelmed by what we saw.
Clouds of smoke enveloped the grounds and the parking lot, reducing visibility to about an eighth of a mile. Everything glowed an unhealthy red, like a scene out of hell. We could clearly see the flames moving over the hills. When the fire breached the hills, it flew downhill, devouring everything in its path. A huge stand of eucalyptus trees was engulfed by the flames. The heat was so intense, they exploded like matches thrown into a fireplace. Thousands of sparks flew everywhere, carried by the wind whipped up by the fire. Some of those sparks fell on highly combustible dry underbrush, starting new fires. The situation was much more chaotic than we’d foreseen. The gusting wind had pushed the fire along even faster than we anticipated. In less than fifteen minutes, it would be licking the hospital’s walls.
Our eyes tearing from the smoke, we reached the SUV. Even though its lights were on, it was almost invisible in all the ash and fire. A restless Prit was waiting for us next to the SUV, beckoning for us to hurry, all the while monitoring the entire area. I noticed he’d taken the safety off his rifle, something that hadn’t occurred to me. Once a soldier, always a soldier. Those precautions must be etched into his subconscious.
While everyone stuffed packages into the trunk, I slipped into the driver’s seat. In this situation, I preferred to take the wheel. I’d had enough of the Ukrainian driving experience—the last thing we needed was an accident.
When everyone was aboard, we sped away in a cloud of dust, sending gravel flying in all directions. The scene was right out of Dante’s Inferno. A huge red cloud enveloped everything as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far, just forty or fifty yards ahead of the headlights. The roar of the flames was punctuated by explosions and the crackle of burning dry wood. I crossed the parking lot in the dark. At the last second, I dodged the abandoned wreck of a bloodstained Peugeot.
I finally found the exit, framed by two monstrous pieces of concrete, and then crossed through fifty yards of barbed wire fence. With a jolt that drew shouts of protest from all my passengers, we ran over a rotting corpse crawling with maggots that lay in the middle of the road.
We’d only been on the road for a mile or so when a huge explosion reverberated in the air, shaking our vehicle. The flames must’ve reached the oxygen tanks stored on the hospital grounds. The explosion was so violent I was sure it brought down half of the front wall. For the next fifteen minutes, we heard a series of explosions, one right after another, as flames devoured abandoned vehicles in the parking lot.
Finally, a massive explosion, considerably more powerful than the rest, made us jump out of our skin. It was either the fuel for the generators or the furnace. The flames had made it into the building.
Blessed Christ. We were on the road again, with no shelter, but with two more people. What next?
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Lucia and Sister Cecilia must’ve wondered where the hell we were going, but they refrained from asking. Maybe they were thinking that the first order of business was outrunning the fire. We’d decide our fate once we reached safety.