Dear diary,

Today is just another day in this cursed world, devastated by those man-eating monsters, and, to be honest, we've all fantasized at some point about something like this happening. I’ll admit it.

But once you reach this point, you realize the harsh truth. This isn’t a game; it’s not a movie. The world we once knew is never coming back. The people we once knew are never coming back, and those you know now, or will come to know, sooner or later, they’ll never come back either…

And if they do, I hope I’m not around.

Nowadays, just being alive is a luxury… no, surviving is a luxury; life itself no longer exists, and kill or be killed has never been so ingrained in people’s minds.

As for me, I trust no one. Not zombies, because they’d kill you just to eat you. Nor humans, because they’d kill you just to eat you.

How does one cope with this situation?

How does one survive this?

How did I survive it, just an ordinary guy? Well, at least I dare answer that last question…

No one is ordinary.

No one ever was…

*****

Suddenly, the glass shattered. Two rotting hands clung to the window, followed by a mouth with jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

Startled, he cursed under his breath, hitting his knees against the steering wheel he was using as a bookrest. Barely a frustrated mumble slipped from the lips of a young man who, until that moment, had only wanted to finish writing his thoughts in a simple diary.

Instinct kept his gaze fixed on that fetid, unwelcome chunk of rotten skin, tangled hair, and inhuman appetite for a few seconds. He didn’t seem to be in immediate danger… yet.

The window appeared to withstand the onslaught of saliva and blackened blood that the monster was spitting as it clawed, literally with nails and teeth, to break through.

His weary brown eyes darted back and forth between the diary and the monster, with quick glances. He could either finish writing the last word of his daily entry… or go smash the head of that hellish, disgusting creature.

Both options were tempting, and had it not been the dead of night, had he not been so tired, and had he not spent the last few weeks traversing desolate highways, roads teeming with corpses, and endless miles to finally reach the outskirts of a certain city…

Maybe he would have gone straight for a clean, quick shot between its eyes. But he decided that writing one more measly word wouldn’t change much.

And that was his mistake.

Crack!

His ears caught the sound of breaking glass…

His face felt the sharpness of every tiny shard slicing by…

His expression shifted, eyebrows shooting up and mouth open wide…

His eyes watched as those two rotting hands invaded his personal space, grasping for him at all costs…

And then, when the creature managed to force half of its upper body through the broken window, when the stench from its gaping mouth flooded the car’s interior, when the gap between the young man’s tanned skin and the creature’s ravenous maw closed to nothing… it bit him.

Its brown-stained teeth clamped down like a hydraulic press, tearing through flesh and digging inward without mercy. The creature pulled back forcefully, keeping its jaw locked, until the body was split in two.

The pages of the diary flew around the inside of the camper, announcing, with their silent fluttering in the air, the painful demise of a good, cherished book: his diary.

“Noooo!” the young man yelled, staring mournfully at the single page left in his hand. The one he had written just a minute ago. Then fury took over him. “Son of a…!”

The movement was swift, precise, and devastating: from the holster to the monster’s head… and the barrel of the gun sang a deathly ballad.

The shot sent the creature tumbling backward, its body slumping in the middle of the street. But the seething rage he felt over losing such a valuable object didn’t calm with a single shot. He could still make it suffer a bit more.

He reached for a lever with a silver, rounded tip in the middle of the vehicle’s control panel and pulled it back, unlocking the camper’s automatic door. A faint metallic click followed. If this had been a regular vehicle, the door would have opened fully, but in this case, it only opened halfway, so he always had to push it open the rest of the way to pass.

With a firm stride and a determined gaze, the young man descended the two steps of his humble home on wheels. His jet-black hair was short, but perpetually messy and rebellious, as if it refused to be tamed. His brown eyes sparkled with intensity, showing unbreakable resolve.

He wore worn-out clothes, signs of constant use and near-zero washing. A faded gray denim shirt that grew closer to black with each passing day.

His pants were just as worn, if not worse, and while the torn knees might have seemed like a relic of the old world’s fashion, the reality was that the holes came from a nasty, hard fall.

As he walked around to the front of the camper, he adjusted the old bandage covering his left arm; a bandage hiding a wound that no longer hurt on the surface, but continued to sting deep in his heart.

Eyeing the cone of light beaming from the vehicle’s headlights, he cocked his gun, preparing it for another roar.

It was a versatile Beretta. A smooth, lightweight gun that, despite daily wear and countless marks from constant use, its signature red-tinted metal pieces remained intact, though now darker.

He gripped the gun with certainty, advancing with eyes set in fierce determination, stopping only when he spotted the creature.

He found it writhing on the ground, emitting grotesque, guttural groans. The shot had pierced its skull clean through, and if he looked closely, he could even see the faint trail of smoke rising from the wound.

A perfect, deadly shot for any living being—except for these zombies.

The monster didn’t take long to notice his presence and stirred, trying to reach him. Its rotten hands struck the ground to lift itself quickly; its gaze narrowed, showing an anger driven by the vilest, most murderous instincts as it lunged toward him.

This was what he hated most about these monsters: their apparent immortality.

The young man backed up until he was once again engulfed by the headlights’ beam, never taking his eyes off his pursuer. The creature reached him seconds later, and finally, he could see it in all its ghastly glory.

It had a thin body with chunks of flesh torn away, and strands of hair clung to its face. Even so, he could clearly see the grayish, lifeless hue in its eyes.

He kept retreating, closely examining every detail of the creature’s form. It wore nothing but shredded pants, with its torso fully exposed, so finding what he was looking for was easy.

In a spot just in front of its shoulder, he could see a bulge protruding from the creature’s skin. The young man had experience. He had encountered these kinds of creatures countless times on his journey, and he knew they all shared this peculiar feature.

The bulge appeared to be a membrane of a viscous, apple-sized mass, usually dark gray-black in color. Thick, intricately laced veins radiated from it, pulsing in a coordinated and steady rhythm, weaving throughout the creature’s body to disappear under its rotten, rough skin.

Some called this putrid bulge the “heart of death.”

This time, he’d been lucky, finding it had been easy, though that didn’t often happen. He aimed his pistol directly at the heart… and fired.

This time, yes, taking its life.

*****

The makeshift repair had come loose again, and his upper lip curled in disgust at the situation. It was a patchwork of three materials: two garbage bags and a lot of duct tape, used to cover the broken area of the window.

It was the third time the repair had come undone during his trip, flapping wildly and uncontrollably. The sound of the bag in the wind was irritating and annoying, and if he didn’t secure it again within the next few seconds…

The bag flew off, like a bird, until it landed by the side of the road.

He clicked his tongue, stopped the vehicle, fetched his new improvised “window,” used a bit more duct tape to stick it to the frame, and continued once more on his journey.

This is how things were now.

Endless trips down desolate highways; the sun scorching his left arm; the same twelve songs on cassette; a floating, unconscious fear that a flat tire could lead to certain death…

And it didn’t end there: searching for potential points of “trespass” in every structure, house, home, building, or remotely uninhabited architecture he came across; and if he did, he had to assess viable escape strategies.

And following a mandatory diet of canned food, whose weekly rotation he already knew by heart: vegetables, meats, tuna, fruits, beans, and soups.

And a boredom that only disappeared when, as a consequence, the sharp stab of becoming prey to one of those stinking, man-eating beasts struck him—the creatures the world—what’s left of it—popularly calls…

“Fucking zombies,” he muttered under his breath.

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about those filthy hellish beings now. He cast a quick glance in the only rearview mirror he could use—the one on the right side by the door—and spotted some shadows moving in the distance.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

He might once have thought of them as possible survivors, or maybe even the occasional animal, but today, reality was very different, and those chances were close to zero.

He knew that if they were living beings, the best, most reasonable thing he could do was keep moving forward, no matter who he encountered. Even if it were the prettiest girl, walking alone down the highway, begging for help.

He no longer had acquaintances, friends, or family in this world, and trusting someone new was out of the question for him. And as for animals, well, finding one that wasn’t infected would be a true miracle.

That thought reminded him of the last time he’d seen an animal… and his lip stretched into a faint smile at the memory.

“Mushroom,” he thought, amused.

It was a tiny dog, no more than eight inches tall. With black and brown spots. It was a classic lapdog breed, always by its owner’s side…

“Elías.”

Now he remembered him… and, for some reason, he recalled the first time he heard him speak.

“—Well… you can stay here, but you’ll have to cooperate with the community and lend a hand. We’re not in a position to give anyone free shelter and food. That’s never how the world worked, and it won’t work now, regardless of the situation.”

“—I won’t be a burden. I’ll work, I promise!”

“—Good. That’s the least I expect. What’s your name, kid?”

“—I… I’m sorry. I don’t remember. I’m trying to.”

“—What? You don’t remember? Bah! Fine, whatever. For now, we’ll call you… Junior. Seems like a fitting name until you remember your own.”

Unfortunately, after more than a year, he still hadn’t recalled his name and was always known as Junior. A nickname he had reluctantly accepted, since in those early days of the infection, he urgently needed a safe place to settle.

Thinking of Elías, the leader of his first and only group, automatically reminded him of someone else… and then the brown in his eyes was overtaken by a dark shadow of bitterness.

And, to top it off, the makeshift bag-window came loose and flew off once more.

Junior clicked his tongue again and slowed the vehicle down. He watched the bag settle gently in the middle of the street, but he also noticed something else.

Civilization was now at his feet, and there was considerable movement in the area; maybe not near the road, but among the nearby buildings. He observed an industrial complex parallel to his position, with four massive warehouses.

The area was surrounded by a fence, like the last strand of a rope, the only thing separating him from a massive, ravaging horde of monsters.

He slowed down but didn’t stop. Over time and with practice, he had gotten very good at “eye-counting” large numbers, and there seemed to be a little over a hundred just on that side of the road. Not counting the monsters usually hiding in the buildings or the wanderers always lurking around every corner.

The risk was too great. Stopping here was an absolute death sentence, and he hadn’t even reached the city center yet.

Doubts hit him, squeezing his heart. His goal was closer than ever, but… Was that damn, famous refuge really located in the heart of one of the district’s largest cities?

His hand left the gear shift and rested on the edge of the gun holstered at his side. Silence was his daily bread, but in his head, sometimes his mind would offer the right words to keep him going:

“Trust her.”

Then that same hand rose to his left arm, gently touching a bandage running from his shoulder to his elbow, protecting one of the deepest, most painful wounds of his life.

“And trust him…”

And that was enough to press the accelerator once more, bid farewell to his bag-window, and venture into the city.

*****

Tip, strike. Tip, strike. Tip, strike. That was the key.

Place the can on a surface where it won’t slip, grab a good knife—he had a field knife, very sharp—place the tip on the top of the can, and with a firm strike to the back of his fist, the blade would pierce through, creating a thin, small opening.

Repeat the process around the circumference of the lid, and there you go. That was his secret to surviving the apocalypse without a can opener for so many days. He had tried finding one on his journey to the city, but as incredible as it seemed, it was apparently a ridiculously hard gadget to come by.

But that wasn’t going to take away his hunger.

From the pantry in his bedroom, he took three steps to reach the kitchen area—in the center of the camper—lit one of the two burners, and poured the soup into a pot. Then he took another three steps back to the bedroom.

Next to the pantry, on the opposite side—just a step away—was his bed, and under it, he had another one of his improvised inventions. A concoction of newspaper sheets glued together with adhesive and sprayed black, which he called “window covers.”

Zombies could see through the glass, and while they seemed mindless, Junior had seen firsthand how some were clever enough to open a door to chase him down.

So he preferred not to tempt fate and always kept himself visually hidden from them.

He used each cover to shield all the windows, but when he finished placing the one for the broken window, he paused, thinking that maybe he could use something sturdier to seal that gap.

He considered whether he had any flat material in the vehicle that could serve that purpose, but the sudden bubbling of his soup reaching a boil drew his attention back to the food, and he forgot about the patch.

His stomach growled for the day’s meal; he sat down and ate in silence. Later, he reloaded his gun, having used a few bullets on the zombie that had devoured his diary, and when he was done, he tossed the used bowl into the sink—he’d wash it tomorrow—and glanced at a map of the district pinned to the fridge.

Though having a “non-interactive” map might seem old-fashioned, he had devised a pretty good system to decide on potential future trips with more confidence.

The X’s marked places that would be a total waste of time to revisit; there were plenty on the map, symbolizing locations that had been checked and found to hold nothing of interest.

Circles, on the other hand, were safe places where he could spend the night and revisit if needed, like temporarily uninhabited shelters or good hideouts for a large camper.

Squares were the rarest symbols on the map, with only two in total, indicating potential looting spots: supermarkets, factories, workshops, and so on.

His most significant discovery had been a gasoline truck that had fallen into a dry riverbed in the middle of the countryside. When he inspected it, he found it in decent condition, and its driver appeared to have departed to eternal rest. That day, Junior scored a substantial haul of six jerry cans of gasoline to take with him.

If he had had more containers, he would have filled them all, and the best part was that the vehicle still had plenty of fuel left to siphon, so going back there was, at the very least, a must.

The other square symbol marked a pantry he had managed to seal, secure, and lock away. There, he stocked up on all the canned food he might need in case of emergency.

Additionally, the map contained one last, no less important, symbol: triangles. They meant only one thing: zombie hordes. The region had several areas packed with hordes; the largest ones, of course, were marked with a bigger symbol on the map.

Junior located the industrial settlement he had seen today and drew a triangle. Then, with a pencil, not far from that mark, he traced his current destination.

He had decided to park in a residential street parallel to the highway access he would need to take the next day. The tip of the pencil traced over the map without drawing as it slid through the streets to a particular point.

“—This place… you need to go to this place, kid,” he remembered the last conversation he had with one of his former group members.

Before starting his long, solitary journey.

“Junior received a crumpled, blood-stained piece of paper from the hands of the man before him. He no longer dared to look him in the eye. Not in that condition. He clutched the map tightly to his chest.”

“—I don’t want to leave you… we’ve come this far only to…”

“—I’ll be fine, kid. I promise. You need to go… they won’t take long to arrive.”

“Junior knew very well he wasn’t referring to the monsters.”

“—I’m not leaving you. I… I can’t…”

“—Yes, you will, and trust me: yes, you can. In your hands lies the dream of us all. Tell me, in your place, what do you think she would have done?”

“Junior felt a stab of anguish at the memory of her. Again, his eyes welled up with tears.”

“—She would have kept going…”

“—Then you know what you have to do. Find the Golden Nation.”

Two determined brown eyes locked onto that map. In the center, in the northeast area, the label “Áurea” was boldly written in red, marked with her own hand…

"I'm so close, Lara," Junior whispered to himself, with a hint of melancholy.

Finally, he buried his head in the pillow and lay down to get some rest and regain a bit of strength, but unfortunately, tonight didn’t seem to have any intention of ending soon.

Despite being utterly exhausted, the strongest emotions were stirring within him: fear, anxiety, worry, nerves. All at once, making noise and keeping him wide awake.

Time slipped away mercilessly, and there was nothing he could do to enter the realm of sleep. He turned over, and then again, locked in an endless dance.

The sheets felt uncomfortable at times, comfortable the next minute; the pillow constantly shifted in temperature, and the trick of flipping it over had already been exhausted within the first seven attempts.

Was there anything worse than suffering insomnia during an apocalypse?

That question lingered in his mind for a moment as his gaze fixed pessimistically on the ceiling. And then, after much insistence, when his eyes began to feel heavier; when his body sensed a pleasant relaxation warming him from within, and when his eyes and his mind finally decided to surrender…

A metallic bang echoed from the other side of the bedroom door, jolting him awake. His ears remained on high alert until, once more… another sound broke through the dead silence of the night.

Junior knew instantly: someone, or something, had entered his camper.