Maybe everything happened suddenly, without any warnings. Or maybe it lasted weeks, even months. To say the truth, I haven’t a clue.
For the past two weeks, I was inside my own house; most of it due to a traumatism caused while I was playing soccer. A small accident, but almost ten days of relax. I had got enough food, so it was neither necessary for me to ask a neighbor for help, nor contact my family.
I didn’t watch TV or put on the radio. I chose to read, to relax, and continue writing a small novel (started several years before). My almost absolute solitude doesn’t let me know about the origin of this evil, more lethal and contagious than the Black Death.
I remember to listen hearing in the news a small part of it. I didn’t give it much attention, though. Who would?
I can hear them, hitting and scratching the entrance door with an inhuman –because there isn't any humanity left inside those creatures– craving. They cry, they moan… They are anxious to make with my body a formless tangle of flesh, blood and bones. And I wish they would make it, so the terror could finally end.
For an instant I think I can hear a brief sound from the phone, as if at any moment someone would call. Alas, that’s impossible; both the phone and the electrical lines have been down for two days.
A coward; that’s what I am. If not, I would have cut my veins using a knife, or I hung myself from a rope. Even so, I’m sure that if I had a gun, my brains would be decorating the walls.
The door starts cracking, unable to withstand the battering of the abominations. I want everything to stop.
I enter into the bathroom and lock the door. Not a great barrier, I realize that. I look around searching for something useful. A tool that can be used for escape… one way or another…
There’s nothing.
They cross the entrance searching for me, smelling the air like hounds. In no time, they are located on the other side of my barrier. I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time.
The door is bursting.
When I can finally see them, the truth becomes clear in my mind. Two weeks ago I came home, yes… And two weeks ago, I died. Alas, as many others, I came back to life –or to something similar– and I tried to go back to my normal life. Then I read books that I wasn’t able to understand, I wrote drawings instead of words, and I cried without tears for my lost humanity.
The hunger, the despair, the loneliness… I don’t know which of those made me forget everything. The reality –my perception of it– altered enough to see men as monsters, and to see monsters, to see me, as men.
I think I can recognize the man leading the gang: Thomas Yeats, from the fourth floor. He carries a blood-covered axe, and swings it over my head. The end, finally, is near.
'Gaaaaah… 'I say in a futile effort to thank him for his imminent action.
The axe falls. My skull breaks in two parts, and I’m dead –dead, forever– even before I touch the ground.
The fear is gone.
(Thanks to Daniela Huguet Taylor, David Prieto and Germán Sánchez for their help.)
(Mis agradecimientos a Daniela Huguet Taylor, David Prieto y Germán Sánchez por su ayuda.)
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