The Wanderers (26 page)

“
Where did we go wrong?” Moses asked, more to himself than to Isabel.

“
It doesn’t matter... we have to go on. Listen!”

And Moses, with his gaze absent, concentrated on doing so. It was true, although distant, the unnerving sounds of the hysterical howls of the dead reached them through ominous echoes from some undetermined spot behind them.

“
Let’s change our direction, maybe that will throw them off our scent,” whispered Moses, who still breathed with difficulty.

He took Isabel by the hand again and slid through a narrow opening in the southern wall. From there they accessed a tight, low ceilinged passage, where their panting reverberated in every direction, exacerbating the feeling of claustrophobia that they were experiencing.

They moved forward for a while, taking a route in one direction, and unexpectedly changing for another branch that opened to the left or the right towards a new destination. On one occasion, they descended a long and narrow staircase where the air was warm and suffocating, just to climb up again some feet further down. Afterwards, they covered a complex labyrinth of tight galleries where the smell of putrefaction reached unbearable heights. Finally, Isabel squeezed his hand hard, and when Moses turned to look at her, he perceived in the darkness that she was totally and completely defeated.

He let himself fall to the ground at her side. They breathed intensely, but further away they could just hear the murmur of running water somewhere, and there was no trace of the howls of the dead. They felt safe, at least for the time being.

“
My God,” said Moses suddenly, remembering Cripple’s last look, with Mary’s cadaver in his arms.

“
How...” Isabel began, but she stopped for a few seconds, trying to regulate her breathing. “How could it have happened?”

Moses also took some seconds to reply. “I... I don’t know.”

“
What are we going to do now?”

“
I don’t know.”

Somewhere, a leaking pipe was making a repetitive and monotonous droning sound.

“
That son of a bitch,” said Isabel, marking each sound with special emphasis, “he killed Mary... Roberto... Josue... and Arturo as well.”

“
He’ll pay for it. I swear he’ll pay.”

“
How?” Isabel suddenly exploded. “How is he going to pay for it?”

“
I don’t know.”

And suddenly, Isabel broke down in tears; a torrent of sobs that caught Moses by surprise. Immediately, he embraced her, and he held her tightly in his arms, their heads drawn together, feeling an emptiness as deep as an ocean abyss that had settled in their hearts. They remained that way for several minutes, weeping in silence. Moses ran his hand over her head, caressing her. He wished to be able to mitigate her pain, so much that his teeth were grinding. He felt equal parts of impotence, pain, and rage, and he found himself jumping from one feeling to another in unbearably short intervals of time. But underneath those sensations he found that he felt a tremendous emptiness that began in the deepest foundations of his soul.

It was Isabel who ended the embrace, slowly separating herself from Moses.
“We can’t go back to your house,” she said. “He knew where we lived, and he knew our plan. He planned everything. The explosion just happened before he had anticipated; if it would have exploded when we reached the exit stairs...”

“
Yes, I’ve already thought of that.”

“
We could still try to get to Carranque.”

Moses realized that his opinions did not go much further than that, and after considering it for a few seconds, he slowly nodded in the darkness of the tunnel. “It’s extremely risky. Are you sure you want to try it?” he asked her.

“
Now more than ever,” Isabel said immediately, her voice sounding firm and sure.

“
I wonder how long that bastard son of a thousand fathers was watching us,” said Moses, with a trace of scorn in his voice.

“
And what if he knows about Carranque? Maybe he has a radio and heard the message just like we did.”

“
I doubt it. Did you see his face? That guy’s insane. He thinks that it’s the Final Judgment and that he’s the Emperor of the Just. I don’t think he has even remotely thought of like listening to a radio, not unless he’s listening to the lunatic tune that repeats itself in that disgusting custard apple he has for a head.”

“
And if he goes back to your house? To wait for us... or look for clues about what we could be doing now?”

Moses received the mental image of that despicable being in his own living room, looking through his things, holding in one hand the marmalade that Cripple had enjoyed so, and he felt a new torrent of rage running through his veins.

“
Maybe we should go there to wait for him,” he said through clenched teeth.

“
That would be madness, Mo. He can move through the zombies as if he was one of them. He can walk freely, wherever he wants. Imagine how easy it was for him to find explosives, place them; prepare the trap. Imagine what he could have prepared for us if we go back there. Damn. I bet he could even shoot us with a rocket launcher from the apartment across from us or blow the whole fucking building while we’re sleeping.”

“
Yes. I know. But how the hell does he do it? God... just one person with the power of being ignored by the dead could clean whole areas in just a few days. Why
him?
Why does he have that power? What kind of a sick joke is that?”

“
I’ve had time to think about all of that during these past weeks,” said Isabel, reflectively, “and I’ve never reached a conclusion. Except that he might be right and that the Final Judgment is not a parable, as you said.”

Moses was grateful for the slight inflection of humor that Isabel had added to her last sentence.

“
Well I sure know why they’re pursuing me,” he said.

“
So do I. We all have our sins.”

After a short silence, Moses got up from the ground. His knees protested, but he felt much better now that they had rested for a while. He scrutinized the tunnel in both directions and he was relieved to discover that they were as calm as he could have wished.

“
Where do you think we are?” Isabel asked.

“
Let’s find out.”

He helped himself up with a thick pipe that perpendicularly crossed the passage to climb up a projection on the wall, and from there he looked out a drain. Although he knew Malaga like the back of his hand, maybe with the exception of the new neighborhoods in the outskirts, it took him a while to distinguish what he was looking at.

It appeared that they had been moving towards the south, but also to the west, crossing the Guadalmedina River somehow without going out to the surface. They were further down, halfway down Andalucia Avenue.

“
We’ve passed the river!” Moses announced. His voice was filled again with the old spirit that he used to possess.

“
How?” Isabel asked, unable to understand.

“
We’re on the other side—we’re on Andalucia Avenue.”

“
Where’s that? Isabel asked, confused.

“
Ok, it doesn’t matter anyway, but listen: we’ve gone off course to the south, but if we move to the west down this street for about one more mile, we’ll reach Manuel Azaña Square. That’s at about... I’d say it’s about a thousand yards or a mile to the north, from the sports center.

Isabel appeared to need a few seconds to assimilate his words.
“But how did we cross the river?” she finally asked.

“
I’m not sure. But I remember that we went down some narrow stairs... one or two floors. Remember?”

“
Yes, that’s true.”

“
Maybe we passed under it.”

“
So,” said Isabel, standing up. “Can we do it?”

“
Yes, I think so. We can do it,” Moses answered with a smile.

They began to walk again, although much more spirited than the last time, and not as quickly. They made sure not to lose their way, which was not easy, because from time to time, a cement wall would block the way and they would temporarily have to change their course until returning to the path, some feet further down.

While they progressed underneath the streets of the city, Isabel, almost in whispers, had begun trivial monologue about the state of the sewers, but Moses who was perhaps conscious that it was to relieve tension, soon lost interest. On the other hand, his mind tortured him with vivid images of how the priest had thrown the cadavers into the crater, and how they had straddled Cripple and ripped his skin, his flesh and finally, his very life. He felt his restrained rage, it was powerful, latent, ruthless. He was aware that if they were to ever meet again, he could discover a new, obscure and unknown side of himself. And he rejoiced in thinking that. He also did not give a damn.

Half an hour later, Moses stopped beside a sewer entrance.

“
Are you going to look again?” Isabel asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Alright, but be careful. Please.”

Something in the way she had made her plea made Moses, who was about to slide the sewer cover, stop. He turned to look at her, and he was surprised at how slight and young he saw her now. He was conscious for the first time that now she only had him left. He had always considered Isabel as a strong woman, but now her precarious world of survival had been fractured, the walls had cracked, her hopes had been demolished. She was, or she felt alone.

“
Everything will be fine,” he said, offering an attempt at a smile.

Outside, the streets appeared to be unusually deserted. They were, in fact, on the main avenue, but they had emerged on one of the ends, next to the sidewalk. Right beside them they was an ONCE[3] lottery stand, and the parked cars formed an unending row, which protected them from the street view.

They decided to go out to have a more complete view of the street. There, crouched down behind the cars, the scrutinized the wide avenue. There were barely five hundred meters from the police station, but even though there were not many specters in the middle of the street, in the distant square the number was considerably larger.

“
We’re already pretty close,” Moses said in a whisper. “If we advance in that direction and make sure we don’t lose the way, we’ll get to Carranque in about twenty minutes.”

“
That sounds very good,” commented Isabel.

“
Well let’s go back down, before one of them notices us.”

“
Wait, Mo... do you hear that?” she asked, with her head tilted to the side, concentrating on the distant sound.

Moses listened. There were a few living dead walking through the street, and the sound of their steps reached them, monotonous and unpleasant. “No... what?”

“
Listen!”

Then he thought he heard a far-away murmur, barely distinguishable, like that of a revved-up motor in a continued cadence. “It’s...”

“
A motor?” Isabel interrupted.

“
It could be.”

“
It’s coming from there, from the square.”

Moses concentrated on the sound that seemed to become increasingly higher and stronger while he listened. And then they saw it appear over the buildings of the left side of the avenue: a beautiful white and blue helicopter that had a word written in large thin script:

POLICE

But before they could say anything, the helicopter took a dangerous turn and fell towards the ground at a high speed. Isabel was barely able to contain a small scream. Thereupon the aircraft turned on its axis several times and ended moving sideward, gently accelerating, towards the buildings on the right.

“
My God, it’s going to crash!” Moses exclaimed, pressing his hands against the side of the car they were hiding behind.

The impact, which sounded like metallic thunder, lifted an enormous cloud of smoke and dust. Isabel and Moses watched the cloud of dust slowly evolve, like a demonic spirit emerging from the proverbial lamp.

“
It hasn’t exploded... it hasn’t exploded!”

“
Oh my God,” said Isabel, sitting her bottom on the ground. Her hands were trembling.

“
Isabel, it hasn’t exploded! Those people could still be alive!”

Isabel looked at him, understanding what he meant.

“
No, Mo... I... I can’t...” she said in a tiny voice, feeling at the edge of a new fit of tears.

“
I don’t want you to come; I want you to stay here. Wait for me here, do you understand? Go inside, close the cover and wait for me.”

Isabel opened her eyes wide, as if he had just told her that she must tie herself to a rock and throw herself into the sea. Suddenly, the very idea of being left on her own terrorized her, but she immediately hated herself for it, and tried to overcome it. She had already gone through too many things to allow herself a reaction like that. Making an effort, she nodded her agreement with an emphatic movement of her head and let Moses leave, running crouched down behind the cars.

Isabel returned to the darkness of the sewers. Her last look before diving into her tight refuge was towards the smoke cloud. It had the shape of a deformed cranium with large empty eye sockets.

Chapter 28

The rooms of the police station collected the reverberations made by the heavy steps of Carranque’s “death squad” as they descended the stairs. They went down a good pace, leaping over the last steps of each flight, four at a time. They were already too used to that type of operation to be worried; however, a somber veil covered them all. Jaime could be losing blood, he could be about to die, or even worse; if he remained alive he could end up being attacked by one of the specters.