Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End by Manel Loureiro Read Free Book Online Page A

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 andshare 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.

ENTRY 27: RIVERS OF SULFUR
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. Theirnumbers 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.”
    Forty-eight hours ago, there were no cases in Pontevedra. What began as a trickle—a run-in with “those things” every twelve hours or so—is fast becoming a gusher of emergency calls, hysterical warnings from one unit to another, and a whole lot of movement by police and soldiers who seem unable to quell the situation.
    What do they mean, “those things”? People infected with the virus? We all know that people who get infected are extremely aggressive, but