Degeneration (3 page)

"Piece of shit," I muttered as I put it in first. "You were a zombie before the epidemic and you're a zombie now."

I then let the clutch out and my 4x4 shot off towards the teacher. I heard the shattering of bones when the front of the vehicle hit his body. After the immense crash, the teacher went flying over the windshield, violently hit the roof, and rolled off and onto the ground, covering the asphalt with blood and guts. I stopped cold and watched in the rear-view mirror as Rafael –that bastard, despite having been run over– was still trying to get up. His legs were torn apart from the brutal impact and his head had smashed after falling to the ground; but, the decomposing being still shook and quivered and seemed to want to sink his teeth into me.

I didn't want to waste more time playing with that idiot. I got out of the vehicle and put the end of my shotgun to his neck, pressing his head forcefully to the cold asphalt below until he couldn't move. The zombie waved his arms trying to grab at me, all the while emitting hostile moans. I kept him at the right distance, making sure his putrefied hands couldn't reach me. I have to admit: I was a bit happy for a moment when I had Rafael against the ground, but a few seconds later I pulled the trigger and blew off his head with one shot. His blood dirtied my pants and his brain matter splashed my sweatshirt, but I didn't mind: they were signs of war. With my pulse still racing, I stayed there a moment, contemplating the teacher's body. I found his broken glasses on the ground and stuck them in my pocket as a trophy.

When I got into my 4x4 again, I felt slightly dizzy: maybe from the built up stress. I closed my eyes and looked up toward the ceiling. I then let out a laugh, a hysterical crackle that rang out between fear and irrationality. I had never been a violent man, but this situation was beginning to modify my behavior. To tell you the truth, I was starting to enjoy plucking off these decomposing monsters. Something inside me had changed when the epidemic struck. I had become an ill-tempered man, thirsty for death; one who enjoyed hunting the living dead. From that day forward, my ventures outside of my house would become both more frequent and more dangerous.

Before going home, I felt the need to have a drink. I missed being able to have time alone, a little peace and quiet for myself. I drove along Pintor Tarraso Avenue until arriving at the Pirraca Bar. The tables and chairs were scattered around in front of the bar, some of them stained with blood. A body was decomposing in a corner.  The spots where its eyes had been were nothing more than two, deep, black holes and hundreds of worms were feasting on its flesh. I saw it was a regular at the bar, but I didn't pay any more attention. I went toward the main entrance to force the door, but was surprised to find it open when I got there. The inside of The Picarra was calm: nothing worrying caught my eye. I went behind the bar and prepared myself a warm rum with coke. The ice maker had stopped working and in its interior I only found dirty water. I sat at one of the tables outside and enjoyed the drink as if it were my last.

"To your health," I said, raising my cup to the horizon.

I
've lost faith in humanity.

The sky drew dark over Navarrés and the Epiphany was ending. It had been a sad, gloomy day, although Sebastian had a little fun playing videogames with me. We had had an enjoyable day and the little guy seemed to understand that the Parade of the Three Kings and the traditional gifts were a thing of the past. Nevertheless, he still had the hope of seeing the Three Kings riding on their camels through the streets of the village, and the dream of sitting on Melchior’s lap to give him his wish list. But I knew that those days would never return.

I left Sebastian playing with his PS3 and I put my goose-down jacket and some old jeans on over my pajama. In the kitchen, Beatriz was making me a hot coffee with cream. I went in and took the mug, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and went up to the balcony. It was a cold night and I tried to warm my hands by placing them on the hot mug. Before plugging in the halogen light, I took a look at Justiniano's house through the binoculars: the lights were on in the ground floor, but I didn't see any movement inside.

I plugged in the light and did a sweep of the grounds around my house: a decomposing being wandered around at the end of the street; the rest of the village seemed quiet.

Without thinking twice, I took the rifle and steadied myself on the handrail of the balcony. With my thumbnail, and making a gesture as if I were tossing a coin into the air, I popped off the scope's cover and dialed in on the zombie's head. The being was dressed in a ragged suit and tie. There was probably a moment when his shirt had been white, but as time went on it took the color of the black blood that flowed from his mouth. I didn't recognize him and so deduced that he must be a stranger: more and more zombies were arriving from over the hills – maybe in search of food, or maybe disoriented. Fine by me, they were mere pieces of game for me now. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the rifle thundered in the blackness of the night and the bullet pierced the skull of the zombie, who fell to the ground like a rag doll. From up there it was easy to pluck off the putrid monsters, although it wasn't as fun as facing them up close.

Suddenly, a shadow inside Justiniano's house caught my eye. I quickly let go of the rifle and shut off the light.  Next, I took out the binoculars and stood behind the wall of the banister, on my haunches, so as not to be discovered. I carefully stood up and saw a muscular young man with a shaved head. I didn't remember having seen him in the village before, and his frenzied movements seemed suspicious to me. A few seconds later, another man went in alongside the first guy.  I could tell from their uncontrolled movements that they were nervous.

"Who the hell are you two?  I don't like you at all," I mumbled, crouched behind the wall.  Then I realized that, from there, they could see the lights of my house and I ran to the stairs.

"Beatriz!” I yelled to the bottom of the stairs, "Beatriz!"

But she didn't hear me. Surely she was cooking with the kitchen door shut. Without a second to lose, I ran downstairs to the garage and disconnected the batteries from the solar panels, submerging the house in total darkness. I then took the backup flashlight along with some extra batteries and went back towards the stairs to go up to the balcony again.

"What's going on?" Beatriz asked, opening the kitchen door and standing in my path.

"Go get the kid, lock yourselves in the bedroom, and stay quiet," I said without stopping, taking the steps in threes.  "Hurry up!"

"But..." she stuttered.

"For God's sake, don't make any noise," I pleaded with her. When she saw how serious and worried I was, she understood that this wasn't a game. She god Sebastian and they hid in the bedroom.

Again back on the balcony, I took the binoculars and tried to see Justiniano's house. I was both nervous and frightened at the same time, my hands were shaking and I could barely keep the lenses in focus. When I was finally able to get the living room into view, I saw that the light was still on, but the two guys had disappeared. I tried to find them in the alleys, but with the darkness I couldn't see more than a few yards from my own balcony.  Even so, the sound of a motor told me that they were moving through the village: they were looking for us. I was horrified when a car rounded the corner and ran over the zombie that I had killed just moments before. They had found us.

Hunched down on the balcony, I rested my back against the wall and held onto the rifle. At that moment, I felt a heavy pressure in my chest; it was as if someone had dropped an anvil on my thorax. Since the infection had unraveled, this was the first time that I found myself up against human beings. I didn't know why these guys had come to Navarrés, but I was convinced that it wasn't with good intentions.

The car stopped in front of my neighbor's house. I got up a little and, through the fog, I could make out that there weren't two, but three, shadows getting out. I heard their steps and the sound of a shotgun being cocked. These guys were armed and weren't there to make friends.

I ducked down and hid behind the wall of the balcony, holding my breath for fear of being discovered. My hands were shaking and my heart pounded in my chest as if it wanted to escape from the prison of my ribs, shattering the boney bars that had protected it for thirty five years. I had never been as scared as I was that night.

"I think the light was around here," I heard one of them say. Judging from his voice, he couldn't have been more than twenty years old. I was not a religious man and I had rarely set foot inside a church in all my life, but that night I looked up to the sky and tried to speak with God. Desperate, I tried to ask him to protect my family from those guys, to make them go away from there and continue up the road... but God refused to listen.

"Are you sure it was a shot?" another one said.

"Sure.  And then I saw a light go out," the young guy who saw me from Justiniano's house seemed pretty sure of himself. "J.R., that house has the windows on the bottom floor covered. I'll bet you €100 that we find someone inside."

"For God's sake, J.R.," said someone with a hoarse voice that appeared to be middle-aged. "Maybe your idiot nephew is right and there is someone in there, but I don't think they're going to go very far... and that little slut in the last place got me hard."

I supposed the "little slut" he referred to was Elena, Justiniano's daughter, a very flirtatious and attractive girl despite her young age: she couldn't be more than eighteen years old. I then came to the conclusion that those perverts weren't people Justiniano knew and that they had broken into his house.

"Boy," I heard the hoarse voice again, "you keep an eye here. Your uncle and I have a few things left to do in that hick's house. If you see movement, shoot to kill."

I then heard footsteps and the slamming of car doors. The motor started up and I heard them skid off at top speed, getting lost in the darkness. Those guys didn't have a conscious: they were capable of anything. I preferred not to imagine what they might do to us if they were able to get in. When I decided to stay there instead of going to the safe houses, I swore to do anything in my power to protect my family – and that included killing human beings if necessary. I didn't have a choice: I'd have to get rid of those perverts before the situation got out of hand. The night and the village were on my side. It was a do-or-die situation: them or us. Their deaths would be more justifiable.

The guy they left guarding my house couldn't be very smart. From where I was, I could make out his silhouette leaning against the brick facade of the house across the street. He was an idiot for not hiding or seeking cover; or maybe he underestimated me. In any case, his carefree attitude would make things easier for me and, silently, I left the rifle and crawled to the door to go back into the house. I went downstairs, into the garage, and took the
Browning
, making sure the shotgun was loaded.  I then proceeded to go out to the street through the back door so that he wouldn't be aware of my presence until feeling the cold metal of the barrel against his empty head.

The air was dense that night. The stench of death and decomposition insistently intruded my nasal passages. The fog and darkness were my allies. The shotgun was a continuation of my arm. I peered around the corner and saw the boy. "Poor bastard, you've come to screw with the wrong guy," I thought as I watched his motionless shadow just 20 yards away. I slowly walked towards him, sticking close to the wall and camouflaged by the fog.

"Don't move! Get on your knees and don't look up from the ground!" I shouted aggressively when I was just a few yards from the boy. "If you try anything, I'll blow your fucking brains out!"

"Please, don't shoot..." the boy begged as he got on his knees on the wet ground. He had a pistol in his hand that he probably didn't even know how to use. I was disappointed by his submissive attitude; I thought he'd put up more of a fight.

Without taking my aim off him, I turned on the flashlight and shined it on his face. He was nothing more than a young, scared boy who had been given a more adult appearance than what he should have by shots of testosterone.

"Don't shoot, sir," sobbed the boy with his hands in the air and his eyes on the ground. I didn't do anything.  I only travel with them.

"Put the gun on the ground, carefully.... How old are you and what's your name?" I asked. At that moment, I began to feel mercy for him. But there wasn't room for forgiveness in this hostile world, laid waste to by the zombie epidemic – not, at least, if I wanted to survive and protect my family. 

"Nineteen, sir. My name is Ricard."

"What brings you guys to my village?"

"We've been traveling for months," the boy responded, "since the living dead ran a rampage on the safe house in Barcelona. I've lost all my family, my friends... I only have my uncle, Juan Ramon, left."

"Who else is with you? The guy with the hoarse voice seems dangerous..." I was interested in knowing firsthand what I was going to be up against.

"They call him Rico," Ricard answered. "We met him at the safe house and he helped us escape when the hoard of zombies crossed the army's perimeter. He's crazy and he has no human compassion."

"Hold on a second.  A hoard of zombies?" I asked, surprised. "They travel in packs?"

"Hundreds, thousands maybe," Ricard nodded. "They attacked us halfway through the night. The army couldn't do anything to contain them. It was a massacre. We weren't allowed weapons in the safe house and we found ourselves defenseless to the zombies. They pounced on us. God... I watched them tear apart my mother with their jaws and I couldn't do anything to stop them.  My father tried to help her, but a zombie bit him in the arm. That's when my uncle Juan Ramon and Rico showed up with an army jeep and we got out of there without looking back."

"And your father?"

"Dead," Ricard answered, saddened.  His crystalline eyes let out a tear. "We stopped in a rest area on highway A-7, near Sitges. The wound on his arm was infected and let out a sticky, yellow pus. A few hours later, he had become one of them... Rico took care of him."