Manel Loureiro - Apocalypse Z - The Beginning of the End

Twenty days have passed since this thing started. Today I heard shots in my city. Whatever this is, it’s getting closer.

January 20, 1:40 a.m.

I was dozing in front of the TV when I heard brakes outside. I ran to the upstairs bedroom that looks out on the main road. A patrol car stopped the Civil Guard at the entrance to our street. Two guards with assault rifles got out and ran past my house to the embankment at the end of my street. Beyond that embankment are some houses, and behind them, a highway. I couldn’t see where they were going.

Pretty soon they came back. A platoon of soldiers coming from the opposite direction was with them. They were nervous, and one soldier’s sleeve was stained with blood or some other dark substance. They continued on in silence and disappeared down the other end of the street.

I heard it again. I can’t swear to it, but I think I heard shots. And they sounded closer than before.

January 20, 11:22 a.m.

I went downtown to buy the newspaper or some magazines. There aren’t any newspapers. The delivery van couldn’t get through. On the way home, I noticed that most shops were closed. I found a small bakery open, so I bought some fresh bread. The worried-looking salesgirl whispered to me that last night she heard shots right next to her house, and something that sounded like “moans.” When she looked out the window, she saw an army truck pulling up at top speed.

I saw skid marks at the entrance to my street yesterday. Now I know I wasn’t dreaming.

January 20, 11:33 a.m.

I’m sitting in the garden, soaking up the winter sun, while I watch Lucullus, who’s staring ecstatically at a lizard scurrying along the wall. The helicopter’s flying tirelessly overhead again. The radio news reported that the government has created “Safe Havens” in the major cities, where they plan to concentrate people. They say around 80 percent of city dwellers can’t (or won’t) leave. Safe Havens. That’s a fucking joke.

At all hours of the day, they repeat that under no circumstances should you try to make contact with any person exhibiting erratic, odd, or disoriented behavior, or who shows signs of violence. Even if it’s an acquaintance or relative. Yeah, right… everyone knows how dangerous sick people are to healthy people.

On top of all this, Channel 3 stopped broadcasting their regular programming. They’re running movies and prerecorded shows nonstop. Every forty-five minutes they broadcast a news update. News anchor Matías Prats looks like he’s been living on the set for days.

January 21, 12:20 p.m.

On Friday afternoon I dodged the checkpoints in town to visit Robert. We’ve been good friends since we were kids. Robert is quiet, low-key, and methodical. He works as an accountant for an import company. He got married two years ago and has a cute baby girl only a few months old. When I got to his house, his wife was packing their bags, and Robert was gloomily watching the television. He said they were going to the Safe Haven downtown. They don’t know where they’ll be staying or what they’ll do there, or anything, but they’re still going.

I get it. I’m a single guy who lives with a cat, but he has a family to look after. Good luck, Robert. I think we’re all going to need it.

After I got home, I stopped to talk to my neighbor for a minute. His house backs up to mine. Before all this started, he was building on a deck. The smell of glue was pretty strong. Bits of sawdust wafted over the wall separating our yards. Lucullus sat mesmerized for hours, watching the dust twist and turn in a light beam. A few days ago the carpenters didn’t show up. I’ve never had much contact with the guy, but I got up the nerve to ask him for a couple of those heavy wooden posts to brace the gate in my front wall. If looters show up, they’ll have to jump over a ten-foot-high wall or break down a wrought iron gate, reinforced with two wooden posts driven into the ground.

More than anything I need a project to keep my mind busy so I don’t think about what’s happening. Fuck.

On the official channels, there’s almost no foreign news. People don’t seem to care, either. It’s as if each country has turned inward to survive. There hasn’t been news of any kind out of Russia for days. Not even on the Internet. Zero. In northern Europe there are a few active blogs. Unfortunately I don’t know Swedish or German or Polish, so I can’t tell what the hell they’re saying. I notice their blogs are full of capitalization and exclamation points, so I gather they are nervous. Or surprised. Or scared. Who knows.

CNN is the only US channel I can still get via satellite. CBS and ABC display blue screens with the channel’s logo, and Fox News is broadcasting static. According to CNN, the population is being concentrated in the Safe Zones in each city’s downtown. Authorities warn that they can’t protect anyone outside those zones from “marauders.” There’s an unbelievable rumor going around on the Internet that the people in the San Diego Safe Zone—and maybe in those of many other US cities—have been massacred by marauding groups. From what I see, life is cheap worldwide these days. If you search for “dead” on Google, millions of links come up.

In Spain, the situation isn’t any better. Safe Havens are being organized in cities with more than fifty thousand residents. Day or night, on every radio or TV station, they urge people to congregate there for their own safety. I’m not going. They don’t allow pets, since space is limited. There’s no way in hell I’ll leave Lucullus. I’m not a nut case about animals, but after my wife died, having Lucullus around was all that kept me from doing something stupid. I owe him that. He’s my pal, and I won’t abandon him to get into some crowded ghetto and share a room with fifteen strangers. Fuck the government and its Safe Havens.

The king is back on TV, in his uniform again, with an update. But this time he’s surrounded by generals. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any politicians on TV for days. The military has taken over. That sucks.

Now Channel 5, just like Channel 3, is only broadcasting reruns and a news bulletin every forty-five minutes. They’re saying it’s to ensure their employees’ safety. Apparently their studio is located in an unsafe area. There are gangs of bandits, they explain.

Cell phones are dead. The three main providers have suspended service and “relinquished” their network to the Provincial Security Corps. Now it’s going to be impossible to contact my sister. She’s a smart girl; I’m sure she’s okay.

I’ve got the shortwave radio on again, listening to the military evacuate people to the Safe Haven. Sporadic gunfire has kept up all day. Civilization is crumbling.

January 22, 4:30 p.m.

I listened all night to the security forces’ frequencies on the shortwave radio. It’s mostly trivial chatter—progress reports from checkpoints, situation reports from patrols, and little else. Occasionally a “hot spot” flares up, and then the situation gets out of control. Although the media is constantly warning us about “disturbances,” those are only a fraction of the incidents I hear about on the police band. Maybe it’s because I live in a small town, but the number of looters seems very small.

However, I’m hearing more and more about the “others.” A couple of days ago, you hardly heard anything about them. Their numbers seem to be growing by the hour. On the police band there are increasingly more reports of “incidents” involving what the soldiers call “those things.”