I whistled softly, picturing the virus spreading across a country the size of the United States.
“When reporters from CBS discovered what was going on, the network bypassed censorship and issued a special report. Immediately after the broadcast, panic spread throughout the country. Millions of people swamped airports and highways, struggling to get out of the cities. Families threw all their belongings in their cars and headed for rural towns where they thought they’d be safe. They didn’t know that many of them already carried the virus, so it spread rapidly across the country. The U.S. government rushed to copy the European model of Safe Havens, but it was too late. Mass hysteria had taken over. The nation’s institutions began to collapse as more and more officials didn’t show up for work, either because they’d fled or they were dead.”
With a chill, I pictured the horrific scene. The United States has an intricate network of highways and airports, so when thousands of infected people fled, they were like Trojan horses, spreading the TSJ virus to every corner of that huge country.
“We believe there are still a few Undead-free zones, especially in the middle of the country. Those areas held out thanks to vast distances, the deserts, the low population, and because gun ownership was widespread before the Apocalypse. We don’t know what the living conditions are like in those regions, if anyone is in charge or if anarchy is widespread. From what little intel we have, the situation varies greatly from one area to the next. Some places are trying to rebuild some semblance of an organized society out of the ashes. In others it’s the survival of the fittest. It can’t be easy living out there.”
“What about South America?”
“Well, it varies. Mexico was affected, almost to the level of Europe and the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Americans thought they’d be safe if they crossed the border. But all they did was spread the virus. Imagine the surreal situation facing astonished Mexican border guards when they discovered that their rich, proud neighbors to the north were now ‘wetbacks.’ They closed the borders, but it was too late. Thousands of panicked Americanos managed to sneak across the border. In large parts of Mexico, the locals went on a ‘gringo hunt,’ egged on by the Mexican press. Anyone who looked like a Yankee ‘swallowed a pint of a lead,’ as the saying goes. Shoot first, ask questions later. But within ten days, the Mexicans had their own problems to worry about. Something like that happened in Venezuela, only there—”
“I remember hearing something about a war between Chile and Bolivia,” I chimed in.
“That’s right. In the midst of all that chaos, the Chilean army crushed the poor Bolivian army and pressed deep into the southern part of that country. But the chaos in their own nation forced them to turn back. That, and the hordes of Argentine refugees crossing its borders.”
“The Argentines?”
“In all that madness, the Argentines were dealt the most fucked-up blows,” Alicia said in a mocking tone.
I smiled. As the conversation progressed, Alicia’s language got more colorful. She seemed more comfortable talking to me and I felt the same.
“Buenos Aires was one of the largest urban centers in the Southern Hemisphere. Millions of people were packed into a relatively small area. As the rest of the world was falling apart, Buenos Aires didn’t have a single case of infection. Not one. It was one of the few civilized places on the planet that were ‘clean,’ but no one took any preventive measures. A week later, when thousands of refugees flocked to the city, no one oversaw their arrival, checked their health, or set up a quarantine. Nothing, as surprising as that may seem. When cases of the epidemic turned up in an overcrowded urban area, nobody—absolutely nobody—bothered to take control. The Argentine military tried to imitate its neighbor, Chile, and overthrow the government, but the civilian government didn’t go down easy. There were demonstrations, shootings, an aborted coup in extremis… As the world was disintegrating, the Argentines were stunned by the power struggle among their leaders. Finally someone got really scared, but it was too late. Members of the government absconded with all the money they could get their hands on and hopped on a plane headed for God-knows-where.”
Alicia took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I took it in silence and let her light it. Interestingly, she didn’t light one for herself but put the pack back in her pocket. I was mesmerized by the way she flicked her lighter on and off as she talked.
“I don’t know where those assholes went, but I hope those monsters got every one of them,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Two weeks after that, the Embalse Nuclear Power Station, near the city of Cordoba, blew up, casting a radioactive cloud over the entire north. No one ordered the shutdown of the plant. Operators disappeared. No one stopped the system from failing. In a brutal example of negligence, every government official dropped the ball. We assume that the plant kept operating unattended until the uranium destabilized and set off a chain reaction that ended in nuclear explosion. All of northern Argentina and southern Brazil are now a radioactive wasteland, where life is impossible, except for the Undead. Of course, they’re already dead!” she said, frowning.
“How can people do shit like that?”
“In Asia things were even worse. The Chinese lost their heads and tried to eradicate the disease from their main population centers with controlled nuclear explosions.”
“NUCLEAR BOMBS?” I couldn’t believe that was true, even though I’d heard about it when there were still TV newscasts.
“The value of human life is more relative in other cultures. What’s inconceivable in the West makes perfect sense to a person from the East where the community matters most, not the individual. If you can save the community by eliminating tens of millions of individuals in one fell swoop, no matter if they’re healthy or sick, you don’t hesitate.”
“And that was their strategy.”
“That was their strategy,” Alicia replied, nodding.
“Did it work?”
“Not one bit. Radiation can’t kill someone who’s already dead. Sure, they incinerated millions of Undead, along with millions of innocent people. Given that country’s dense population, even if only a small percentage of Undead survived the explosion, that equates to millions surviving who then scattered in every direction from the razed cities.” Her eyes bored into me. “Think about it.”
“Absolute chaos… worldwide,” I whispered.
“We aren’t the worst. In Asia and the Middle East, human life is no longer possible. At least, life as we know it. As for Africa… the stories the few survivors have told us are shocking. Africa is hell on earth. We surmise there’s almost no one living on the continent, except for small, isolated groups scattered throughout the rainforest or Tuareg nomads roaming the Sahara desert. Dozens of small-time kings and warlords filled the power vacuum when the governments collapsed. Disease, war, famine, and nature swept away anyone the Undead didn’t get. Africa has regressed hundreds of years,” she said with a frown. “The living are almost more dangerous than the Undead.”
“We stopped in a fishing village on the coast of Morocco.”
“You said in your statement it had been ravaged by ‘fire and the sword,’ as the saying goes. That’s the pattern all across the continent. It’s a fight to the death for resources and survival.”
“Resources? Africa is probably the most fertile place on earth! It could easily provide food for the rest of humanity!”
Alicia laughed and looked at me as if she knew a huge secret but wasn’t sure whether to tell me.
“We don’t just need food. We’re running desperately low on all the basics: medicine, fuel, clothing, ammunition, vehicles that run. Think about it: Every box of medicine our hospitals consume means one less box of medicine in the world. Every gallon of fuel our helicopters burn means that much less transportation by air. Every bullet we fire at those bastards takes us one step closer to defending ourselves with bows and arrows! No industry, no international trade, no technology, no tankers bringing fuel into ports. Think the world’s a mess now? Wait a couple of years and you’ll look back on this as the good old days. We are rushing headlong into a new Dark Ages. And as long as those creatures are out there, there’s not a thing we can do about it!”