The Wanderers (23 page)

When it was all over, he felt relaxed and satisfied. His hands were trembling and his mouth was a well of sand. He went to the kitchen and rummaged through the shelves, but he only found cereal, legumes and some large sacks of rice. In another cabinet he found jars of marmalade and several brands of chocolate spread, with and without hazelnuts, as well as large carafes full of water. He drank without any restraint, and later sank his long and emaciated fingers into the sweet food. He ate lasciviously, until feeling sick. Thanking the Lord first for the food he had received, of course.

In the following days, Father Isidro repeated his insane mission several times. It was not hard for him to lure the survivors out of their holes; in most cases, they were people incapable of fighting any longer; physically and psychologically debilitated. Some of them surrendered without offering any resistance, almost seeming grateful to him for putting a full stop to their semi-existence surrounded by death. In others, he managed well driving his hordes of resuscitated people, whom he was able to arouse with tremendous ease. In this, he had become terribly effective.

It was almost always the same procedure. He located them, either revealed by the light, or the sounds that reached him from the businesses or homes on his long walks. Then he would destroy the barriers they had slowly constructed with large hammers, electric saws or, when it was possible, vehicles. He was the absolute master of everything. He was the King of the city.

He would sleep anywhere; the city offered him thousands of comfortable places to rest his bones: a hotel room, a bedroom in any given house. He would fall asleep, lulled by the languid moans of the dead. Once he slept next to the bloated and rotten cadaver of what seemed to have been an old woman. He did not perceive the smell any more, and of course, he did not feel any repulsion at the bodies devastated by the signs of death.

One morning, after saying his prayers, the father returned to the streets to occupy himself with his tasks. While he strolled through the center of the city, he lifted his head to the sky and suddenly saw him, leaning out one of the balconies of an old building. It was he
... that same young man. The young man who had escaped from his first incursion, once he had understood what the Lord wanted from him.

Instinctively, very slowly, he retreated into the shadows of one of the projections of a nearby building without losing him from sight. His heart beat with renewed momentum in his chest.

Several times in earlier days, the face of that young man had tormented him at night, tormenting him in the middle of a diffuse gray cloud in which the young man always escaped each of the father’s attempts to capture him. He would awaken, sweating, and ask the Lord’s pardon for the poor performance he had offered Him that day. He knew that the Lord would concede him a new opportunity, and he finally had it before him. His enormous teeth shined within the satisfied smile that drew itself on his face.

At that moment, another individual stepped out onto the balcony. It was a tall man, with an athletic body, a sparse beard and a Moroccan appearance. How appropriate, he thought, while his small eyes shined with hate in the shadows that were hiding him. Loathsome, impious people who would soon be subjugated to the Final Judgment. He then swore it in the name of the Lord and swore it upon the purity of his own soul.

But he would not be hasty. He remained there, studying their movements, their body language and their ways while they talked and pointed to the horizon. He continued to stand there, impassive, not daring to move a single muscle, until both of them retired to the interior of the house. Then he released the air from his chest and breathed labouredly. He had them.

In the following days he stalked the house’s surroundings as a predator would. He wanted to know how many there were, exactly where they were. This time he was determined not to fail. He climbed to the last floor of the neighboring building and there he curled up, camouflaged by some ancient curtains, to spy through the window. They were very smart; before dusk, they closed all of the shutters and barely went out on the balcony. However, on the few occasions they did, he was already there, and he also saw one of those girls who had been hiding in the Plaza de la Merced.

He ground his teeth, covered in the dense, pale dust of the old curtains, and he hated them so profoundly that he almost fainted.

Once, when he was close to the entrance, he saw two men go outside. The first one was the Moroccan; the second was a man who limped with one of his legs. They managed themselves well, running and zigzagging among the zombies, even before they could react. He followed them from a distance, discreetly, hiding among the resuscitated. He saw them enter a grocery store, where they were for just a few minutes, and leave again. They wore backpacks.

That same afternoon he saw them go out again, run to another one of the stores, and leave again. And the next day, and the one after.

They were like little worker bees, spinning some unknown plan. Father Isidro entered the stores once they left, and perused the shelves. The accumulated dust allowed him to find the spots from where they had taken products. He found that several supplies were missing, mostly of daily use, and others that were less common, like tubes of mesh, tools, huge amounts of alkaline batteries and even waterproof galoshes, but he did not know what message to extract from all of that activity.

Finally, one of those mornings, he saw the crippled one disappear down one of the sewers assisted by the Moroccan, who, in a moment of tension, had to behead one of the specters using his iron bar. From his hiding place, several feet away, Father Isidro blinked as if he had suddenly understood the concept of a third dimension in the volume of objects. The sewers! He had not given them any thought in his whole life, but he suddenly considered the possibility that, underneath the city, where the resuscitated never looked, the impious could hide. What a delicious paradox, he thought, hunting down the sinners in the sewers just as they had pursued the Christians in the sewers of Ancient Rome. He pronounced the word aloud:
“
vengeance
”. He knew, through the words of the apostle Paul, that only God has the moral right of a just vengeance, but was he not His instrument, his punishing fist, the executor of his last judgment?

Once the Moroccan had returned to the safety of his lair, Father Isidro ran to the sewer cover, removed it and slipped inside with the agility of an athlete. It was as dark as a cave, but far away in the distance, the weak luminescence of the light the impure man carried still showed, waning as he moved away.

For a long time, Father Isidro followed Cripple from a distance. It was not hard, because the man left a trail of string where he passed. They crossed through dark tunnels and narrow pipes, they dragged themselves through foul nooks and walked prudently, dragging their feet where the fecal waters were high. He followed him the whole time, silent and sibylline, like Tolkien’s Gollum after the bearer of the Ring in the mines of Moria. Having reached a certain point, Cripple stopped, and rested by a cement wall that was perpendicular to the corridor they had been following. Afterwards, he followed his own trail back.

Father Isidro withdrew through the tunnel, his large whitish eyes fixed on the tremulous light that was coming near. Finally, he encountered a gap in a brick wall and disappeared inside. He waited, panting, for Cripple to pass him by and waited until he saw him disappear in the distance. There was no doubt about it; he was going back. He then continued down the tunnel until he reached the spot where he had rested, and stood there, looking around.

What had he done there? What was he searching for? He looked and searched; he scrutinized the wall with his hands but found nothing to indicate the crippled man’s purpose for coming to the sewer.

There was a gentle light filtering through the small gap in a sewer cover, but it was not enough to see well, so he climbed the two stairs in the wall and popped off the cover with a hard push. Light and a soft breeze of fresh air flooded in, and when he grew accustomed to the light, the sterile and impassive wall of the façade of El Corte Ingles greeted him.

And then, he understood it perfectly. There was nothing special about that tunnel. The tunnel was not the aim; it was the means. They were going to escape
... to cross the city from beneath.

With the warm rays of the sun illuminating his cadaverous face, Father Isidro closed his eyes, inhaled slightly, and began to smile.

Chapter 25

In the middle of the night, the loud noise of the rain falling upon the roofs of the city woke them. It rained so hard that it was not long before large spouts of water came rushing out of the drainpipes from the roof to the ground. There, the zombies did not seem to be affected by the water: they just erratically ambled on as usual.

“
This is not good,” said Cripple, looking out through the windowpane.

“
We should have done it before. We were ready!” Roberto protested.

“
If the water floods the sewers, our plan is finished,” lamented Cripple.

In the sky, the fine line of a lightning bolt momentarily broke the darkness of the night.

“
You’re mourning the chicken’s death before it has even hatched from its egg,” said Moses, with both palms of his hands on the glass. It was cold, but it felt pleasant to touch. “Tomorrow we’ll go down there and take a look. If it can be done, it will. And if it can’t be done, we’ll wait for a few days. We’ve been here for weeks, a little more time won’t hurt us. The people at Carranque aren’t going to disappear.”

“
And what if they do disappear?” Isabel asked.

“
If they disappear, they’ll leave a note. And if they
disappear
,” he said in a gloomy tone, “we’ll be happy to have not been able to arrive earlier. Let’s go to sleep.”

The next day everyone was up long before dawn. The sky seemed to be overcast, but the rain had ceased and the smell of the day was intoxicating, wet and clean. It wasn’t until that moment that they realized how bad the city had smelled.

They had some breakfast and put on the equipment they had gradually acquired: galoshes, gloves, and even some improvised protectors that covered their mouths and noses, as a precaution against the smells. They checked the flashlights that were charged with new batteries, and adjusted their small backpacks.

While the others were already giving a routine look at the street to see the number of zombies and their location in relation to the house entrance and the sewer entrance, Moses approached Isabel and spoke to her discreetly.

“
I want you to keep an eye on Mary. I’m worried about her... disconnecting again. Things can get very ugly. I’ll go behind you the whole time, and if you notice anything strange about her, let me know immediately. The last thing I want is for her to scream down there, or drop her flashlight and run off into some tunnel.”

“
She’ll be fine,” answered Isabel, nodding her head, “really. We were talking about this the other night. She has gotten over all of that.”

“
I’m glad.”

Isabel smiled, although timidly.

Shortly after, the group was going down the stairs towards the entrance. None of them said much, which cast upon the scene a dramatic tone that, in reality, no one desired. Moses lagged behind for a few seconds, taking a last look at the four walls that had been his refuge for so long. It seemed that it had only been yesterday when Cripple told him that the dead were coming back to life, but even though he made an effort, he did not find many memories of life from before the Infection. He silently said goodbye, closed the door and turned to catch up with the others.

“
We all know what we need to do,” said Moses once they were all reunited in the entrance hall, “but I’d like for us to go over it once more.” He looked them all in the eyes, but did not receive an answer, so he went on talking. “We’re going to move that piece of furniture to go out. As soon as the opening is wide enough, we all leave together, in a row. Josue will go first and Roberto second.” He pointed at each one while mentioning them. “Then Mary, Isabel, and I’ll go last, covering the rear. The sewer entrance we’re going to use is about a hundred yards to the right. The cover already has a hook on it, so taking it off won’t take long. Josue goes down first, in case there are any surprises down there, and will let us know once he has confirmed that everything’s okay. Mary jumps down next, then Isabel. Isabel, don’t jump immediately... give Mary a few seconds time to get out of the way.”

“
Ok,” said Isabel.

“
It’s a short jump, but it still is two meters, so be prepared for the fall. Roberto and I will be in charge of covering you while you go down. And finally, Roberto jumps, and I’ll follow him. And although they never have, let’s hope those things don’t follow us this time. Everyone got it?”

They all nodded their heads energetically. Isabel was expelling air from her mouth and shifting her body’s weight from one leg to another.

“
Let’s go.”

Roberto and Cripple went to a side of the heavy piece of kitchen furniture and pushed it, not without effort. The metal legs made rude screeching noises against the stone tiles of the floor. Although it was a sound they had all heard many times before, this time it awakened old fears they had thought they had forgotten. Unconsciously, Mary retreated two steps.

Finally, when the bright and clean light of the first hours of the day filled the room, Cripple glanced back at them quickly, and stepped outside.

Exactly as planned, they abandoned the entrance in a row and at a good speed, running straight in the direction of the sewer entrance. The specters turned around as they passed, lifting their hands and grabbing for them. Judging by their erratic movements, they seemed surprised, as if they had mounted guard during a long time just to discover that the enemy was not coming from anywhere; it was already among them.