The Wanderers (15 page)

Dozer, who had been playing with an old stapler up until that moment, detected the change in Peter’s voice and looked at him with interest.

“
Now I have
marvelous
memories of that time, but as I told you, when I lived it I wasn’t conscious that it
was
, in fact, marvelous. I remember... I remember those long summers, the dull, worn rocks on the beach, warmed by the sun, and what about the indescribable smell of freshly cut grass? Or the intoxicating smell of
Coppertone
that the foreign girls left behind when you passed them by, or the smell of salt that impregnated those old discolored mats there used to be at Playamar Beach? And the priceless sensation of having all of the time in the world, feeling every day that everything was going well, and the peace of mind of knowing that no one expected much of you? God, that was so good.”

“
Many of those things won’t come back, man,” said Dozer, who had become maudlin with the memories.

“
That’s what I mean. This is the end, as that Morrison song said. And I feel deep sadness for not having realized how incredible life was when life surrounded me.”

Immersed in such dismal thoughts, they let the silence bathe the room. The night was arriving and was quickly blurring the shapes of the furniture around them.

The human race had always stumbled on with a variety of possible threats, from gigantic meteorites possibly entering on a collision course with Earth, to the unfreezing of the polar ice caps, passing through the nuclear menace that was so pervasive during the 80s. But they had never thought that humanity would become subjected to the philosopher’s stone that it had so longed for, the crazy and chimerical dream of wandering the earth trapped in a horrible form of eternal life.

The arrival of the radio also had a positive effect on the morale of the Community. Newfound hope nestled in the hearts of the survivors and for days, it was the conversation topic preferred by them all. They found any excuse to leave their tasks and let themselves drop by the little office. They asked for the radio, and smiled when they were informed that the radio was working fine, thank you, and no, no additional cooling system was necessary, nor any wooden insulating support to avoid the little piece of junk picking up humidity or static, as suggested by a carpenter named Diego who desired, at any cost, to contribute to the noble cause of disseminating the message. A former Siemens engineer suggested studying the radio’s mechanism to build a second appliance, worried by the possibility of it dying due to its age.

Aranda decided to make use of the survivors’ willingness to cooperate and put on the table an idea he had been considering since he had arrived at the sports center. They had seen it when, traveling the sewers, they managed to reach the police station that was more or less a kilometer and a half to the south. It was blue and white, spectacular, and it reflected lovely sparkles of sunlight as it rested upon its platform on the roof of the building: a small but beautiful helicopter. Aranda exposed the idea in one of the many control meetings they held. He wanted to go back there and try to pilot it.

“
That’s insane, Juan,” interrupted one of those present. “Piloting a helicopter isn’t like trying to drive a car without having a clue. Maybe you could raise it a bit, but it’s most likely that you’ll veer off to one side and crash to the street four floors down. A fall like that, when you’re wrapped in an iron cage with a rotor turning at a high speed above your head, there’s only one possible ending.”

There were several voices showing their agreement with that opinion. Most of the gazes indicated a clear negative reaction to the proposal, but Aranda went on, imperturbable. His voice was commanding, a natural gift that he had never been conscious of until now, and it quieted those present.

“
A helicopter will permanently solve our main problem—maneuverability. We’ve been cleaning the surrounding buildings for
months
in hopes of expanding the community’s perimeter, but each time our team goes outside, it constitutes a risk too evident to resist the idea that someday, we’re going to lose someone.” Again, muted murmurs went over the hall. Aranda let them die out on their own before continuing.

“
There’s a good number of solutions available in this city that could make our job much easier, much safer. Think of machine guns, flamethrowers... all of those things are available if we can cautiously think of the possibilities, but trying to get to them seems impossible to us. The highways are choked, the streets are flooded with wanderers. Let’s also think of...” he swept the hall with his gaze, “other survivors. How easy, how simple it would be to let ourselves be seen from the sky, fly over the city, the whole Costa del Sol, the numerous towns all over the place, in search of other survivor groups. People that—like us—have managed to create fortified compounds and are waiting for someone to take a stand against the siege imposed by the wanderers. For all of these reasons I would like to, firstly, ask the hall if anyone has an idea of how to pilot a helicopter.”

There was a sudden silence. The heads turned, searching for a reaction among their companions. Some shook their heads, and although Aranda’s speech had made many of them reconsider the situation, they all understood that their gestures were of disapproval, not an answer.

Finally, a frail looking young boy that had dedicated himself exclusively to the maintenance of the pool raised his hand.

“
Jaime?” acknowledged Aranda. Every head turned.

“
The helicopter has three different controls,” he began after a few seconds, “the cyclic stick that controls the inclination to the left and right, and the heading control, which allows you to incline the nose up and down, changing the rotation plane of the main rotor. The collective controls the power, the angle of the main rotor’s blades, to go up and go down. The pedals control the right and left turns, changing the tail rotor blades’ angle.” He hesitated for a second. “There’s also a motor control that is generally automatic, although some are manual.”

Jaime became silent, and incapable of sustaining Aranda’s gaze for any longer, he lowered his head, concentrating on fiddling with his hands. The hall was filled with a murmur caused by many quiet comments.

“
Jaime... ? asked Aranda, scrutinizing his youthful face. How old could he be, nineteen, twenty-two? “Have you ever piloted a helicopter?”

“
No-not really.”

Aranda blinked, perplexed. “How do you know all of that?” he asked.

Jaime fiddled with his hands again before answering. “Well... I... I learned it in a flight simulator,” he stammered.

“
RIDICULOUS!” yelled someone immediately, and the whole hall began to shout mixed opinions in a way that had never been seen in that hall before. A couple of girls left the meeting taking wide steps towards the double doors at the exit. Aranda had to plead for silence for almost a whole minute before regaining control, but he was finally able to address Jaime again.

“
Jaime, what kind of flight simulator was it?”

For a few seconds that seemed eternal to Aranda, Jaime did not answer. His face was red because of the pressure he was under, because he felt like the center of everyone’s attention. He looked around. Everyone was there, all of the others. He knew them all. Peter was there... Elena... Ramon... Ramon stared at him with a frown, he had never seen him like that, and although he could not think of any reason for him to be angry with him, nonetheless he was.

“
I...” he began, his tongue scratchy, “it wasn’t... I mean, it was a real simulator. It was the same one they use in flight schools. They use that type of software to save fuel and avoid unnecessary risks with real machines. Usually, when you have at least forty hours of flight time in a simulator you can... you can pass on to the cabin of a real helicopter. That software is used in simulated cabins where the controls and seats are completely realistic, and you don’t look at a screen; the whole cockpit is a screen in itself, that way the feeling of immersion is complete. But I used a pirate version of that software, FLYIT, and... it was adapted to work with a conventional console controller, and a standard PC screen, so I don’t know... I don’t know if I could pilot a helicopter or not. Oh, and there’s another thing...” he quickly added, “the helicopters used by the Civil Guard or the National Police are EC135s, if I remember correctly, and FLYIT only emulated
Bells, Robinsons, Enstroms
and some others. So...”

As soon as he had added that clarification, he lowered his head again. His cheeks were so red it seemed as if he had spent the whole day lying underneath the late summer sun.

Again, the murmur of comments filled the hall. However, Aranda noticed the change: their facial expressions were not absolutely negative; they had begun to accept the possibility. For the next two hours, they studied the subject calmly and closely. Many of the members of the small community of Carranque were still against even trying to pilot the helicopter, but Aranda was satisfied; he had planted his seed, and it sure was growing fast and strong.

Chapter 18

The days after David’s fall down into the alley were not easy. A dark and ominous veil, dense as the cold fog on a Scottish moor, seemed to have been woven in the house. They did not speak much among each other. Isabel remained in her room all day, not even going downstairs to eat, or upstairs to wait for her knight in shining armor to appear on his white horse. John was having delirious nightmares; he dreamt that the ground, which had become black and dry soil, opened to swallow him whole. Mary, who passed most of the time with him, put wet cloths on his head and tried to comfort him, but he was visibly worsening, and in the rare periods of lucidity he experienced during those days, they did not dare tell him about David’s death.

Roberto, the fifth survivor, concentrated on cooking and cleaning. He said that it helped him stay sane, and they let him be. He was still able to remember the smoke smell that had dominated his grandmother’s kitchen. The walls, made of thin branches, let the pale rays of the sun enter, while the clay stove’s smoke mixed in a gentle dance, with the aroma of brewing coffee and freshly made tortillas. The memory of her chicken soup always brought a smile to his face.

One afternoon, Arturo took Roberto to the roof to speak to him in private.

“
I’m worried about John,” he said.

“
I know...”

“
No, you don’t understand...”

Roberto looked at him with curiosity.

“
What happens if... he dies?” Arturo blurted.

“
What happens if dies?” Roberto repeated under his breath, as if he was speaking to himself. Finally, he lifted his gaze towards his friend, with his eyes wide open. “If he dies... if he dies he’ll... !” He lifted both hands to his face, covering his mouth so he would not have to say it aloud.

Arturo nodded.

“
If he dies,” he said, “he’ll
come back
...”

For a while, Roberto paced the roof, hands on his hips, eyes downcast looking at the floor. “It’s like those fucking movies...”

“
Yes.”

“
He’s with Mary!”

“
Yes.”

“
How long does it take for them to-?”

“
I don’t know, but I think it’s pretty fast.”

“
We have to get her out of there.”

“
You’re not going to convince her, and I don’t think that telling her what could happen if John died is what she needs, given the circumstances.”

Roberto looked at him in confusion, the veins of his neck swollen with tension.

“
So what do we do?” he asked, raising his voice. “Do we wait for John to die, turn into a fucking
zombie
, and rip Mary’s head off without anyone noticing? Eh? And what will happen when Isabel, you or me find both of them in the hallway, blocking the way with their eyes white? Do we open the door for them to leave? Eh? What? Tell me! Do we hit them in the head with a fucking Fanta can?”

Arturo calmed him, putting both hands on his shoulders. “I’m just saying that John can’t be alone with just one person in the room. He’s much worse. He’s yellow. I cleaned out his bedpan yesterday, and his feces are liquid... fluorescent and frothy. I think he’s going, Roberto.”

Roberto blinked.

“
And what do we do if he dies?” he suddenly asked, feeling the sensation of pressure on his chest he already knew so well.

Arturo cleared his throat, visibly uncomfortable.
“I thought of leaving him locked up, but I don’t know if those interior doors will hold out much. We have to... hit him in the head. A heavy blow, understand? I don’t know anything else that works with... when...” he trailed off.

“
But dude...” said Roberto, with both hands on his temples again, “what are you talking about man?”

“
Listen, it has to be done. Get it in your head. Think about it when you’re in there... because it
has
to be done.”

Roberto realized it, of course. He had not survived the indescribable agony of a city that had been dying little by little to not understand that there was no other way out. He had tried, however, to build a wall around himself, to stay away from the horror as much as possible, either in the kitchen, or with the cleaning chores. When he cleaned the floors, he used copious amounts of bleach. He liked the smell of bleach, because it disinfected and killed putrefaction. He liked to cook, and being able to dedicate plenty of time to prepare a simple pot of lentils, because it represented the ordinary, healthiness, and it helped him keep his hope alive.