A helot in the truck with Mendoza and Prit pointed at something in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked, wide-eyed.
Prit let out a string of Russian curse words, and Mendoza crossed himself. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, terrified. The whole column screeched to a halt.
On the hill, a mule with a body slung on her back trotted happily toward the convoy.
43
Prit jumped out of the truck before it came to a stop and ran toward the mule. It’s gotta be him.
When he reached the mule he stopped, panting. The rider lay facedown across the mule’s neck. His legs were tangled in a torn saddlebag slung over the mule’s back. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d have fallen to the ground.
Something shifted inside one of the bags and uttered a meow that sounded very familiar. Pritchenko’s face lit up as he reached into the saddlebag.
Suddenly the body slumped over the mule let out a horrifying groan.
Prit froze. The body on the mule rose up and looked at him with an all-too-familiar blank expression. His deathly pale skin was riddled with thousands of spidery veins.
Oh, hell, it can’t be true!
“Get away from that thing!” Mendoza shouted as he ran up behind Prit, trying to catch his breath. When he saw what was on the mule, he drew his gun and cocked it loudly. “Let’s get this over with,” he murmured and took careful aim.
“No!” Prit shouted. “Don’t shoot! Look at his veins!”
“They’re swollen, like all the monsters,” Mendoza insisted.
“Yes, but they haven’t burst yet!” Pritchenko caught his sleeve, speaking quickly and urgently. “His transformation isn’t complete yet! We can still help him!”
“He might not be completely transformed, but he doesn’t have far to go,” Mendoza replied caustically. “How do you plan to help him?”
“With Cladoxpan,” said Prit, stern-faced. “With a massive dose. It might work.”
“We’re gonna need every drop of the stuff back in Bluefont,” Mendoza snapped.
“Mendoza, don’t fuck with me,” said Prit with a snarl. “You’ve got thousands of gallons—I just need three or four. Do I have to break a couple of your ribs to change your mind?”
“OK, güero, take it easy.” Mendoza raised his hands in surrender. “Take what you need. But you’ll have to do it. I’m not getting anywhere near that rabid mouth.”
As if he understood, the rider on the mule let out a threatening groan and stretched his hands toward Mendoza. Unfazed, Prit hurried to the first truck and grabbed two helots who were watching the scene from a few yards away. After a couple of minutes, the three of them came back up the hill, rolling one of the barrels of Cladoxpan.
“How’re you gonna get him to drink it?” Mendoza asked. “He won’t do it on his own.”
“I’ll do it the old Soviet army way,” Prit replied as he stood the barrel on end and pried off the lid with his knife. “If you can’t do something the polite way, you use brute force.”
The Ukrainian came up behind the rider and, before he could react, grabbed him in a judo hold. At the same time, the two helots cut the straps that held the man to the mule. Then Prit shoved him headfirst into the barrel.
At first the thing fought back furiously, but the Ukrainian held his head under with one iron hand while the other gripped him in a rugby tackle. When the thing couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he took a swallow. The Ukrainian pulled him out by his hair and then, after a few seconds, plunged him back into the barrel.
Pritchenko repeated this maneuver a dozen times with the coldhearted fury of a Soviet interrogator. Each time, the thing swallowed more and more Cladoxpan. Finally the seizures ceased and his body relaxed. Satisfied, Prit pulled him out of the barrel and gently laid him on the ground next to the mule, which watched, wide-eyed.
“Now what?” Mendoza asked.
“Now we wait,” said Prit, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “And cross our fingers.”
When I first opened my eyes, I was overcome by nausea. A foul stench hung in the air, and my lungs felt as if I were about to drown. I was lying on my back and someone had laid a blanket over me. It was dark and the stars twinkled in the sky. By the light of several huge bonfires, I could make out figures in the shadows.
I leaned to one side and vomited for what seemed like an eternity. My head pounded. I felt like I had the most monstrous hangover on record. But I was alive. I was alive!
That realization overwhelmed me. Somehow I’d escaped death, or rather nondeath. I was weak, bruised, and bone tired, but I hadn’t become an Undead.
“Look who finally decided to wake up,” said a familiar voice behind me.
“I would’ve laid here longer, but this place stinks. I’m sure you chose it,” I said as I struggled to sit up.
Prit and I threw our arms around each other. My friend sighed with relief, and I shook uncontrollably as my body readjusted to being alive.
“I’ve told you hundreds of times, don’t go anywhere without me,” the Ukrainian scolded me with a smile. “See? You nearly got yourself killed.”
“That was a close one. But you wouldn’t have liked the trip. There wasn’t a single bar anywhere.”
A couple of helots walked up, whispering among themselves and pointing at me. Then a few more came over to get a look. A few crossed themselves and looked at me with a strange, reverent expression as they talked among themselves.
“What the hell’re they saying?” Prit asked. He spoke pretty good Spanish, but couldn’t follow their Puerto Rican accent.
“It’s a passage from the Bible: He descended into hell and rose from the dead,” I replied as fatigue washed over me again. “They think it’s a sign. The mule too.”
“They think you’re the Messiah?” Prit asked, incredulous.
“That’s stupid,” I said sleepily. “I’m no Messiah. But if believing that helps them bring down that false Messiah in Gulfport, I’ll be happy to put on a white robe.”
“You won’t have to,” said Prit as he helped me to my feet. “In about twenty hours, the ghetto will rise up. We’re going to take out Greene and his goons once and for all.”
“What the hell’re you talking about, Prit?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Now we gotta get out of here.”
I climbed into a truck as the rest of the convoy started their engines. Night was falling, and the helots were nervous about what they might run into out there in the dark. Prit climbed in next to me and the convoy started to roll.
“This is Carlos Mendoza,” he said and pointed to the tall, stocky Mexican man who was glaring at me. “Don’t pay attention to anything he says. He’s got a bad temper. I’ve got a broken nose to prove it. But deep down, he’s not a bad guy. He’s the leader of all these people.”
“We’ve met. The lawyer on the bridge in Gulfport, remember?” I stuck out my hand.
“Well, well. So you’re the gachupina’s boyfriend,” he replied, making no move to shake my hand. “I must admit, you’re a tough nut to crack. You’re the first guy to come back from the Wasteland, though you just barely made it.”
“I got lucky,” I said, lowering my hand. “If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have lasted another half hour.” I turned back to Prit, who beamed like a father watching his son learn to ride a bike. “What the hell’re you all doing here, Prit?”
The Ukrainian explained everything that had happened. Mendoza joined the conversation, reluctantly at first, but got more and more animated as he reeled off his plans. The ghetto uprising was his obsession. The plan was all he thought about. And he was just a few hours from carrying it out.