“I need to talk to someone in Bluefont.”
“Talk to your reverend or those Nazi assholes on the bridge. I can’t help you.” She turned and went back into the shed.
“Don’t go, please! ¿Cómo te llamas?” Lucia blurted out.
The woman turned, surprised. “Alejandra, but call me Ale. You speak Spanish!”
“I’m from Spain. Just got here.”
“You’re a long way from home, gachupina,” she said, using the unflattering term Mexicans called anyone from Spain. “What the fuck do you want to come over here for? You’re better off where you are, believe me.”
“I have to talk to a man named Carlos Mendoza. You know him?”
“What do you want with Gato Mendoza?”
“I met him on the Ithaca.”
Alejandra stared into the darkness for a few seconds. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?” she demanded, looking around for Green Guards.
Lucia thought fast. She remembered her conversation with Mendoza on board the oil tanker. “He said if I ever needed him, to say I was one of the Just.”
The woman’s expression changed. “That sounds like Gato,” she said, shaking her head. “OK. Follow me.”
The Mexican woman and Lucia walked along opposite banks. Alejandra stopped next to the twisted remains of a bicycle, slowly rusting against the fence.
“Cross here,” she said.
Lucia looked around. She’d passed by that spot twice but hadn’t seen a way to cross. The deserted rocky bank sloped gently down to the swirling water.
“What do I do?” she asked, confused.
“Look closely and just walk,” Alejandra replied, patiently.
Lucia walked to the edge of the channel where the water lapped at the toe of her shoes. She spotted several boards just below the surface.
“It’s called a Vietnamese bridge.” Alejandra sat on the embankment and pointed. “It’s a normal bridge, just two feet below the surface of the water. Better take off your shoes.”
Lucia took off her shoes and waded into the water. It was cold and the current was very strong, but walking over the submerged bridge was surprisingly easy. She realized she could never have swum across.
Suddenly a branch racing along in the current struck Lucia’s ankle. She stumbled and stretched her arms, trying to keep her balance, but with no success. With a loud splash, she fell into the water headfirst.
The current drove her against the bridge and one of the pilings dug into her ribs. Lucia gasped and choked as she swallowed a lot of water. In the darkness, she lost her sense of direction; for a few long seconds, she didn’t know where the surface was. She panicked. I don’t want to drown in a dirty river in the middle of the night.
She kicked her way to the surface, where she gasped for breath and coughed up dirty water. She grabbed on to the bridge, wiped the wet hair out of her face, and peered over at the shore. The Mexican woman had disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed her up.
Before she could wonder where the other woman had gone, she heard the roar of an engine approaching along the bank behind her. Terrified, she saw a police car patrolling the embankment, sweeping its spotlight along the fence and both shores, about two hundred feet away. She didn’t have time to climb back on the bridge, much less make it to the other bank.
Lucia only had one choice. She took several deep breaths; when the light was just a few feet away, she plunged back under the water. The first ten seconds passed slowly. The water was so cold she could feel her veins contracting. All sorts of debris hit her as it was swept along. She nearly panicked when something slimy grazed her face. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she resurfaced, trying not to make any noise.
The patrol car was slowly moving downstream. She’d narrowly escaped. Physically and emotionally drained, she tried to climb back onto the bridge. Her wet clothes felt like they weighed a ton. It took her three tries to kneel back up on the submerged surface.
“Gachupina! Get a move on! They’ll be back in a couple minutes!” Alejandra had materialized out of the shadows and beckoned her.
Placing her feet carefully, Lucia made it the rest of the way. On the other side, she climbed the embankment to the fence. Alejandra pulled back a cleverly hidden gap in the barbed wire, big enough for Lucia to drag herself through. Then she released the wire and resealed the gap.
The petite Mexican woman looked Lucia up and down, her hands on her waist. Despite her short stature, determination and character oozed out of every pore.
“Welcome to hell, gachupina. I don’t know what the devil brings you to this side, but I hope it’s worth it. I don’t think you’ll ever cross back over that river again.”
23
“There’s one over there! Shoot him! Shoot him, you idiot!”
Carlos Mendoza whipped around to see where Chino Cevallos was pointing. An Undead, about forty, wearing ragged jeans and a ripped T-shirt, was staggering down the sidewalk across the street. The guy had a severe bite wound at the base of his neck, but he was covered with so much furry orange fungus you couldn’t see his much of his skin. The fungi had branched off and climbed up the guy’s neck and into his nose. The image was repulsive and hypnotic at the same time. Mendoza and his buddy were seeing more and more fungus-covered Undead, but they didn’t know why.
Carlos raised his Mossberg rifle. As always, he licked his thumb, wiped it across the sight, and took aim. When the Undead filled the sight, he pulled the trigger. An instant later, the guy’s head sprayed like a fountain and he collapsed to the ground.
“That’s fifteen,” murmured Chino Cevallos.
For two hours they’d wandered around that backwater town looking for supplies, but it had already been ransacked by other looters. All they’d found were some cans of soup past their expiration date. They decided to eat the soup anyway, despite the risk of botulism. They’d seen several men die from eating bad food, but hunger got the better of them. They hadn’t eaten for six days and were getting weaker and weaker.
Two cans of soup, Mendoza thought, and only half of our ammo. A few more days like this and we’ll be as good as dead.
Then the Undead cornered them in the grocery store where they’d holed up. Up until the last ten minutes, they’d held their own. Now their luck was running out.
He and Fernando “Chino” Cevallos had spent over a year together. They weren’t sure when they’d crossed the US border, but they were sure this was the farthest they’d ventured into gringo territory. Borders meant nothing when food was so scarce.
When the pandemic broke out, Carlos Mendoza joined one of the armed groups that went “güero hunting” along the US-Mexico border. For three weeks, volunteers patrolled the border, intercepting Americans who were fleeing south, hoping to evade the TSJ virus. Shoot first and ask questions later was the motto.
But the TSJ virus prevailed. Mexico, like the rest of the world, went to hell a few weeks later. Mendoza, Chino Cevallos, and a hundred other armed men found themselves cut off from their command center. Half the group deserted and rushed home to protect their families, even though deep down they knew it was too late. Others thought it was suicide to leave. Some, like Carlos Mendoza, had no place else to go.
For the next several months, the fifty güero hunters traveled along the border, fighting to survive. Hordes of Undead hounded them at every turn. They ran low on food and ammunition, and their vehicles broke down. Now there were just the two of them left.