Maldito perro!

“Hey, buddy...” softly my brother calls him. His voice trembles.

The dog wags his tail. He moves back and forth, circles around on himself. We must be the first humans he’s come across in these two days.

Damn it, damn it all...

One more bark, one of innocent enthusiasm. Soda is shaking... I...

I run to the dog, he comes a little bit closer to me and barks one more time. He expects food, a cuddle, he wants to get on two legs and play with me.

Before he can do anything else, I sweep him up, his side hitting the ground, a little yelp escapes him. I put my knee on the side of his head and begin to press down hard, with the weight of my whole body.

He looks at me betrayed. If this is a game, it's too violent, maybe he thinks. He starts paddling, hitting the air, he wants to get away, he scratches me with his little paws in desperation, maybe he can't breathe, he wants to slide his head from my knee that is pressing him more and more against the ground, almost bursting it. His little cries sound even louder.

My machete falls on his neck. He kicks harder than before, stronger, faster. If his feet touched the ground he could run far away, out of this city in a second. The position does not allow me to take more strength to kill him more humanely if there is such a thing.

I don't hear that wail anymore, just a high-pitched sound coming out of his mouth, or not his mouth, his neck actually, like a balloon deflating. Again, I hit him with the machete. That air coming out of the neck reaches my face, it smells like a fetid breath mixed with blood, I feel an acid taste in the back of my throat. I ignore my retching and strike again. For each hit, the animal tenses and makes another small noise. It sounds like the sound of gargling.

One last blow, he swings a paw that ends up stiff in the air, which he will never move again. He urinates and stays stiff forever. I keep hearing air coming out as if breathing, but it's a post-mortem reflex. The same betrayed eyes stay still there for eternity, staring somewhere in this great abandoned marketplace. Blood, its color stains the nauseating white of the floor, covers it with a dark layer in this blackness.

Forgive me.

If these monsters were not attracted by the sound of the explosions, maybe the barking of the dog—

From the entrance I glimpse the figures of the monsters, their bodies contrasting against the colors outside.

We have to go to the back door with the broken window, to that—

Wait, no!

I tug Soda by the arm and we run to the west end of the market, towards the technology counter. We jump up and hide behind it, bodies to the ground. The coldness of the floor cannot fight my temperature, my blood rushes inside my body, to my extremities, giving them warmth, oxygen, supplies to run, to escape. Adrenaline drives away my tiredness, a momentary gift for survival.

Several of the beasts emerge from the backdoor. They came in through the broken window, I knew it…

These things arrive. I look through my monocular that Soda gives me, which he had saved in his pocket. At their feet, the almost beheaded dog lying, his blood adorning this floor, still coming out from his neck and his mouth. They pay no attention to it and start looking around. Is as if that primal intelligence of theirs is telling them that prey is hiding nearby. It's only a matter of time before they find this place.

One of the monsters slips on the poor dog's blood. Its face makes a noise against the ground, one that makes the others point their heads in the beaten beast direction. That thing puts its arms on the ground, propels itself forward like an acrobat doing tricks on a trampoline, and stands up. An acrobat that moves his arms and head from side to side, with enough force to break his bones. Its nose bleeds and it ends up spitting at the other monster that approached in the dark. And then...

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The monster that was spat on, that has that foreign blood on it is hit by the one that spat on it. The punch explodes against that thing’s face. It falls to the ground, rumbling in the place. Other monsters join in the beating, not letting it get up. Punches like explosions, again and again...

Why, because it had someone else's blood on it? Does blood attract them? No, if that were the case, they would devour each other. This is the opposite of attraction, it's aversion. A monster with the blood of another on its body will be attacked.

The attacked beast no longer moves, its head no longer exists. Shit, I should have taken advantage of the commotion, but... I learned something important.

What’s the point? To tell others this secret.

But I'm not out of options. I turn up the volume on my phone, just one level out of fifteen, screen facing the ground, Soda watching beside me. I throw the device as far as I can, close to the entrance, hitting a gondola in the distance.

The heads of the monsters move toward the noise. But soon their faces point to the source of the phenomenon, to this counter.

How?! Are they smarter than the others? Did they see me?

They tense their bodies, get ready to run. It wouldn't take them more than a second.

“Soda, call me.”

But there's no need to say anything to him, he's arched over with my rifle on his other hand, blocking the cell phone light. He was already dialing my number.

If the cell phone broke with the hit, if it turned off for lack of battery, if the lines don't work…

The song floods the place. God forbid it should leave these walls, this empty, white immensity. The monsters jump... and in a second, they are on top of the device, they knock down part of the gondolas in the process, more noises. “Smarter” my ass. That’s why I turned the volume up, a last-measure thing.

This is our chance. We jump one side to the counter and run, parallel to the wall and going south. Close to the floor, our bodies so low that our knees sound with every step that squeaks a bit despite our best efforts. Soda right behind me, I take his little hand to guide him.

We reach the room of the small window at the top; I make Soda enter first. I close the door behind me, taking advantage of the noise of the gondolas still falling, I warn Soda to avoid the broken glass of the floor.

We can reach the window with the help of the desk. In its frame, the glass is a bit crushed, even more shattered and pointy than before by the bodies that just came in. I take the clothing change I kept in my backpack and use it to wipe off the debris, feet on the desk. A cut with glass is no joke, and more now than any infection can mean death.

The door handle rattles.

I lift Soda with the strength I don't have and help him through the now safe small frame. I practically throw him through, the rifle almost blocking his way. The door swings open.

I leap forward, eyes closed and arms like I’m taking a dive, or like I was some kind of acrobat going through those hoops of fire. My feet crash against the wall, but my momentum holds and my body makes it through the little frame as I hear a loud noise on the wall. Right where my feet have been moments before, a monster has hit so hard that the entire wall feels it.

I don't quite know where it's up or down, but I've fallen on my ass. I see the sky and it's... it's clearer, much clearer than before, much lighter. Shit.

From behind my shoulder the moon and the stars that are already going away illuminate the outline of two hands on the window frame.

Soda helps me up, gives me my rifle and we start our race.

I only glance behind as we run away, my little brother on my side. The profile of the monster appears, it shakes its head so hard it could break its neck, one way, the other. It wouldn't matter, it would heal and move again in that sick silent rage. When its head stops moving it is pointing at us, spotting us in the escaping darkness.

Our feet clatter loudly against the battered cement of the street.

We run until we’re out of energy, south. And we keep going.

“Ceibo, we have to go home, we're close, we can go around them there or hide, we’ll think of something!” Despite exhaustion, he can say it, risking running out of breath.

It's the only chance we have. We can enter and escape through our room’s window!

From the houses around..., we hear footsteps that are not the echo of our shoes.

The air burns my lungs, hard to get in, hard to get out. It scorches. I don't know if it's my heart that hurts or if it's my esophagus that is stinging. Despite the incipient clarity, I see darker. Shadows like a spider's web rise over my sight, throbbing like my chest.

Had we known, we would have headed south at once. To leave our home and go far away, to the chacras’ sector, to the nascent barrios, those that the Russians founded. But there was unrest to the south, screams, we heard gunshots too. We had no choice but to get away, to go far north.

They are too fast, these monsters.

If we had known better, we would have taken a chance, then maybe mom… There's no point in thinking about it, there's no point. Nothing can be changed.

As the beasts march on, more and more join in. Dozens.

And we are in our house, the door is open, we enter the place.

No one could loot it, no one could do anything to it.

Nobody was able to do anything anywhere. The ones who could do the most were those who had weapons in their hands. They were the first to die, of course. One shot, and the attention of the whole world is yours.

That's right, we're at home now, in the kitchen-dining room.

We're at home and mom is sitting at the table.