Degeneration (2 page)

"Don't worry, man," said Salvador, smiling. "Take care and, if you need anything, you know where to find us."

"Don't worry," I nodded and set out for home. I never saw Salvador and Manuel again.

When I got home, my father-in-law was leaning in the doorway, impatiently waiting for me with a serious look on his face.  I took a look inside his car and I saw my bad-tempered mother-in-law. They didn't even bother to say hello. The two seemed very nervous and it was clear that they felt in over their heads.

"You guys should come with us," my father-in-law suggested. "The mayor said that the safe houses are the safest place. The army's there... they have weapons. They've got a security perimeter in place.  They'll take care of us."

"Joaquin, I'm not setting foot off my property," I answered decidedly. "We're staying."

"Listen to me, you ass!" shouted my father-in-law, grabbing my arm. "You've got my daughter and my grandson locked up inside there."

I stood in front of my father-in-law and I stared threateningly into his eyes, but he stared back at me and wasn't intimidated. With a swift movement, I took his hand off my arm. I then opened the back door of my 4x4 and started to unload the trunk.

"I've got my wife and my son locked up inside there," I said, looking to the boxes and starting to unload.  "Those safe houses are not safe; you don't even know if they'll have room for you guys when you get there.  You can stay at my house and fight for your family, or you can go to the safe house and let other people fight for you."

My father-in-law got in his car and, flashing me a gesture, left without looking back. I supposed that they arrived to the safe house that the army had established in Valencia, at least that's what I told my wife. We never had more news from them.

My house had three floors. It was a newly-constructed, semi-detached house in the newest zone of the village.  We had decided to buy it just a few months before. I fortified it by boarding up the windows on the bottom floor and I reinforced the doors with steel bars.  You could go into the yard from the living room through large, sliding, glass doors. I planted vegetables so that we would always have fresh food in the house. Also, we could reach the garage by cutting directly through the yard.  In case of emergency, it would be a good escape route. On the top-floor balcony, just next to the laundry room, I installed a lookout point. From up there it was easy to use the sniper rifle to take down the few decomposing beings that came near my territory. 

The internet and cell phones both went down a week after the epidemic began; a few days later the same thing happened with the TV. The government channel was the last one to go down; I suppose the workers were motivated by the national pride of their bosses. They were creating and broadcasting absurd talk shows about the epidemic, calling for calm while the world was crumbling under our feet, until their signal went down. They spoke of the situation being under control, saying that we would soon have a cure for those affected. Liars, shameless people at the service of an incompetent government; I was as excited as a kid with an ice cream cone when a hoard of zombies interrupted the show, reaping chaos on screen, tearing those mediocre "experts" from the shows to shreds. 

The village's lights went out after two weeks. I supposed the generators had been left unmaintained when everyone fled, but I didn't go round to check. When all was said and done, my house had solar panels so the problem didn't really directly affect me. Navarrés turned a bit more terrifying with the blackout, more dangerous. At night, under the darkness, the moans of the decomposing corpses made my hair stand on end. I installed a halogen light that I found amidst the rubbish in the garage in my balcony lookout point, it would give me some peace of mind on night shifts.

When the electric grid went out, drinking water no longer made it to the house. Luckily, when I bought the house I had a water tank installed on the roof. At least we wouldn't need to use our bottled water to take a shower or wash the dishes. It would be hard to get filled up again, but at least we'd have hot water without having to heat it in pans.

Soon I discovered that we weren't the only living beings in the village. Through my binoculars, I could see that someone had hung a sign on one of the houses near the supermarket. The house belonged to Justinian, a rabbit farmer whose farm was near my father-in-law's. The sign read:
S.O.S. - PEOPLE ARE HERE.

Truth be told, I never went to offer them my help. They didn't offer to help me either, so I suppose it was a tie for thoughtlessness. To be totally honest, although it may seem a little selfish, I didn't care in the slightest that they were there. My only worry was my family: to protect them and take care of them, even if it meant losing my own life.

During the following six months, I kept the situation under control. Navarrés was a quiet village, but the streets filled with dirt and grime. In all that time, my journeys to the street were few; I only worried about dragging away the zombies that I took down from the balcony. I used the empty cans from our canned food to teach Beatriz, my wife, to shoot. I gave shooting classes to my son, Sebastian, too.  He seemed to enjoy the zombie epidemic as if it were a videogame. Waiting usually filled the day, while a sort of tense calm fell over the night. Beatriz and I tried as hard as we could to maintain an optimum state of well-being in that desolate environment and, protected by the four walls of our home, we tried to lead a respectable life: taking care of our little one and doing what we could to make him happy.

But, the day soon came when the canned goods ran out and there were hardly any more jugs of water left in the garage. That's the day when I had to cross the village to get to the supermarket....

A
n irritable dawn.

In the cinema, in literature, on TV, in videogames....  We've become intimately familiar with the living dead who have always been ingrained in our culture. But, you're never really aware of just how terrifying a zombie can be until you have one right in front of you. When you're just a few feet from one of them –when you smell their foul breath from beyond the grave and you see their decomposing faces– your legs shake and your pulse picks up as you fear falling prey to their insatiable appetite. It is in that exact moment that you truly understand the meaning of the word
terror
.

The day was sunny in Navarrés, although the nearing end of autumn had brought with it the first chilly mornings. December was just around the corner and we'd soon have to turn on the heat. In other times, the arrival of winter wouldn't have been a problem: a higher use of resources was covered by the electric network and, so, we were never without power and our batteries were always charged. But, without electricity, we ran the risk of blackouts: from then on, we were going to have to cut back on our power consumption to avoid the dangers of the dark.

A moment before leaving for the supermarket, I peeked into the little guy's room: Sebastian was entertaining himself with a videogame. The child looked away from the screen a second and smiled at me. He still didn't know what was really happening, that the world as we knew it had come to an end. Sebastian would never see his friends again; he'd never go back to school, nor would he play on the swings in the park. How do you explain to a child that his life will never be the same? I didn't have enough courage to do it and I hoped that, with time, he would realize for himself that our lives had changed and that we were very lucky to still be alive. Or... maybe not? In any case, it was better to still be alive than to wander the streets as a zombie in search of a piece of meat to stuff in our mouths.

Once I was in the garage, I took two boxes of cartridges off the shelf and I left them, along with the shotgun, in the passenger seat of my 4x4. Afterwards, I gave the Parabellum that I kept in the glove box to my wife and I hugged her as if it were the last time that we were going to see each other.

"As soon as I get out, close the door and don't open it until I get back," I said to her, my voice trembling. Just before leaving, I made sure that there were no zombies in the street, but even so, my legs shook at the thought of Beatriz and Sebastian being left alone. It was almost impossible for a decomposing being to get into the house; plus, Beatriz was a good shot.  But still, I couldn't help but think that something horrible could happen during my absence.  Beatriz was a very strong woman, but I doubted her ability to keep calm when meeting face to face with one of those mutant monsters. Practicing with cans is not the same as blowing off a zombie's head as he comes near to bite you.

With no more delay, I turned the key and directed my 4x4 to the street. I could see in the rear-view mirror that my wife had closed the garage door behind me and I sighed to calm my nerves.

Navarrés was a small village and the trip from my house to the supermarket wasn't more than two minutes by car, especially since all the traffic had disappeared. I crossed the Rio Grande Bridge and continued driving until I was in front of the shop. The state the streets were in was devastating: muck and grime everywhere, some decomposing bodies, and several abandoned cars. Before getting out, I glanced around me: everything seemed clear; except for a few dry blood stains on one of the windows of the supermarket which called my attention. I would have to stay alert with all five senses. I took a deep breath and grabbed the shotgun. I then got out of the vehicle and cautiously went into the establishment.

Once inside, I found signs of a struggle: some shelves were tipped over and food products were scattered about the floor. More blood. A long trail of it that went up the aisle and lead into the back room, as if someone had dragged a body to the refrigeration chambers.

"It's not my problem," I mumbled, barely opening my mouth. I hadn't gone to the supermarket to investigate anyone's death; I only had to grab a few canned goods, some jugs of water, and then get out of there. Still, those stains were both worrying and tempting for me. What had happened there? Whose blood was that? Through clenched teeth, I decided to follow the trail.

I cleared the way from all the debris in the aisle and I followed the blood trail to the door which separated the shop from the back room where the freezer was. I opened the heavy, steel door and drew back the plastic curtain that was behind it. The freezer's motor had stopped working and the smell of decomposition flooded over me; I was about to vomit. I could hardly see in there and I hadn't taken the flashlight with me. On the shelves I found unthinkable amounts of rotted food, things with mold and covered with repulsive worms. Despite the darkness, I continued advancing through the oppressive aisles of the freezer until I tripped over a shelf and a box of steaks fell on my head. Frightened, I turned around and shook my body to get that shit off.

"Fuck!  How disgusting!" I exclaimed as I took handfuls of worms off my arms. Just then, a sound coming from the back of the freezer put me on alert. I was not alone inside there.

I raised the shotgun and strained my eyes to try to see what was moving back there. Lying on the floor in the corner, I could see the body of a zombie whose legs had been cut off. He noticed my presence, opened his mouth, and let out a terrifying moan.  As he did this, he choked up a mouthful of black blood that dripped off his chin. Even in the darkness I recognized that it was Pepe, the president of the cooperative association that ran the supermarket. But if you think that Pepe had stayed in Navarrés to protect the interests of his association, I assure you that you are mistaken. I'm convinced that he was bitten by a zombie while trying to steal the shop’s money. The decaying being came towards me at surprising speed, dragging his guts along the floor and pulling himself strongly with his forearms. It was tight inside the freezer and the lack of light made it hard for me to aim at his head. When I was about to react, the zombie was already just a few inches from me. With amazing ease, he pushed off with his arms and tried to throw himself onto me, but I responded to the attack in time and hit him in the face with the stock of the gun. He fell to the ground and tried to push himself up again. Then I hit him repeatedly in the skull until his head cracked in two and his brains fell out onto the floor of the freezer. Splashed with Pepe's brain matter, I went to the back of the freezer and found several bags of money covered in blood. "Son of a bitch," I said, “even as a zombie this bastard was still worried about money.” So as not to waste more time, I took the bags and ran out of the freezer.  I filled the trunk of my 4x4 with canned goods, took the last jugs of water that I found, and got out of there without looking back.

The confrontation with that putrefied being had somehow excited me and, for some reason unknown to me, I felt the need to take a drive around the village. I drove carefully through the high roads. Everything seemed calm there. I passed by the Villaplana Café and got to the entrance of the church. There I found two zombies wandering around; they were lost and disoriented and tripped time and time again over the steps that led to the large, arched pillars of the church’s doorway.  They seemed to be two members of the clergy who were, by instinct, going to pray to their god, the same god who had abandoned them. I stopped the car just a few feet away from the decomposing beings who, in turn, didn't even notice my presence. I tried to recognize in their putrefied faces the people who, a long time ago, had occupied those bodies; but, I wasn't able to identify them. Maybe they weren't even aware of how they had gotten to where they were.

Without wasting more time, I rolled down the window and stuck half of my body out. I then raised the shotgun and put those poor, unfortunate men out of their misery. In that moment, a loud scratching sound alerted me to something that had run up against the passenger window. Worried, I turned around and aimed the shotgun in that direction. One of the decomposing beings had pressed his face against the glass and was scratching at it with his moldy, bloody nails. The zombie moaned and showed his repulsive teeth –the mortifying means of infection for others– as he vomited mouthfuls of blood onto the glass. He smashed his head into the window over and over again. I had to finish him off, but I couldn't shoot him from inside the vehicle; I ran the risk of blowing my eardrums out with the
Browning's
roar, or of taking a piece of glass to the body when the window blew in all directions. I thought about taking a risk, rolling down the window and pulling the trigger... but if I made a mistake, I would be at the mercy of that monstrous thing. So, I slammed on the clutch and jammed my 4x4 into reverse, intending to run him over. I backed the vehicle onto the sidewalk and got a couple feet away from him. The decomposing monster was directly in front of me, wobbling as if he were drunk. From this distance, and now a little calmer, I saw that it was Rafael, a retired teacher who had taught my wife in grade school.  His appearance had hardly changed from when he was alive.