Apocalypse «Beginning of the End»

Карамзин Азизбек Набиевич

Sweating from breaking the roof under the hot sun, the garage greeted me with pleasant coolness and shade. There was no time to enjoy this feeling, but I could not refuse myself and sat down on the frame of the backpack, removing my wet and fairly grown hair over the past two months from my forehead.

“It must be great to have such a garage,” I thought, “you can pick yourself in the car.” Something, and I loved this since childhood. Unfortunately, I didn't have my own garage. I serviced the car at the service station and, each time taking it away after repair, I found some minor flaws. At least, it seemed to me that it was every time: something was under-tightened, then over-tightened, then the body was smeared with dirty gloves, and so on. And here he drove the car and his own head, and everything you need is always at hand.

With difficulty tearing my ass off the backpack, I picked up and poofed the canister: “It’s not thick, five liters, probably.”

Opening the lid, I sniffed the contents, and yes – it was gasoline … definitely not a solarium. I sniffed again. I wonder which one?

Once I happened to read that you can distinguish the eightieth from the ninety-second and higher by rubbing it on your fingers. The 80's should be less oily than the 90's, but there was nothing to compare it to, so I decided to think of other ways. Looking around, I found sixteenth-radius cast wheels with a Mazda badge, stacked in a corner and covered with a tarpaulin. What kind of gasoline is poured into cars on such a casting? If I understood at least something in this, then gasoline should be no lower than ninety-two. Looking around a little more, I found on one of the shelves a familiar beige box – these were cartridges for Makarov caliber 9x18. I was surprised to find that it was full and contained 16 rounds. I threw the ammo into my backpack. Finding nothing else he needed, he took a funnel from the wall and poured the gasoline he found into a canister, attached to my backpack. Then, having perched him on his back, he went to the exit.

I carefully examined the door and found the alarm. The loud ringing bell was located between two shelves bolted to the wall and hidden by a curtain. Apparently, it was autonomous or powered by a battery. If I pulled the latch, it would work. In any case, a powerful ax blow ended his existence.

In addition to the latch, there was a second lock, and it was opened only with a key. There was little chance of cracking it, so I turned my attention to the garage doors – things were better here. The gate was held by two hecks and tensioners located above and below. The hecks gave in easily, but things were worse with the tensioners. Each turn was difficult, and it took me a long five minutes to unscrew them. When the upper tensioner was removed and the lower tensioner had a couple of turns left, a shadow appeared in the gap under the garage door. Someone stood silently on the other side of the gate. I froze and listened, feeling my stomach tighten with fear. Seconds passed, but nothing happened. I tried to look under the door, but the hole was too narrow to see anything. Therefore, I did not think of anything better than to knock lightly on the door and see what happens. The shadow on the other side came to life and came close to the door. Now I heard someone sniffing convulsively, then exhaling with a wheeze and sniffing again. There was no doubt that there was an infected person there, and if they smell healthy people, then this one had little chance of smelling me – the garage was filled with a mixed smell of gasoline and auto chemicals.

I looked hopefully at the hole in the ceiling through which I entered here, but, alas, it was too high, and there was no way to get to it. The only way out of this garage was through the gate and the indifferent one that was waiting for me on the other side.

The gate clicked and wobbled as I pushed the last few turns of the tensioner. The intruder on the other side perked up. Clutching the ax tighter and taking a deep breath with a full chest, stepping back a couple of steps, I exhaled with a shudder and, with all my strength, kicked the gate. Plaster fell from the ceiling as the gates rumbled open, knocking whoever stood behind them to the ground. It was a teenager of about sixteen, dressed in a football uniform and boots. He was not at all embarrassed by what was happening, he both fell and stomped on me on all fours, shaking bloody saliva from his open dirty mouth, without even bothering to get to his feet. His face was deathly pale with blue streaks, multiple bruises and bites were visible all over his body, and his eyes were truly terrifying. These were the eyes of a dead man, greyish-yellow,

– Go away, boy, I'll hurt you! – swinging the ax, I tried to appear as serious as possible, but the teenager continued to shove forward, pushing me to the back wall.

– I'm talking for the last time! Get out! I shouted again, and my voice broke into a treacherous squeal.

– Well, that's it, kid, you asked for it yourself … – I said and, having described an arc, I stuck the ax into the kid's head with a swing. The blood spattered in small splashes in the face and on the clothes. Something jumped in my chest, and a lump rolled up in my throat. The boy's body went limp and sank to the ground, dragging the murder weapon lodged in his skull with it. Restraining the urge to vomit, I put my foot on the dead shoulder and, cracking the skull with a crunch, pulled the ax out of it. Time seemed to stop as I stood over the dead teenager and couldn't bring myself to look away from what I had done. A sound coming from the street snapped me out of my stupor. I walked out of the garage and discovered that it wasn't just this poor fellow who had come to the noise. On both sides of the garage span, about a dozen infected wandered. Some of them noticed me and were already walking towards me. Most of them were slow and clumsy others were a little more active, pushing the first ones away, moving towards their potential prey. A pregnant woman in a once-white skirt and a torn sweater stood out in particular. She, looking from under her brows, walked in my direction, clutching a cobblestone in her hand. Her movements looked more confident than the others, and she walked, trying not to overtake others, letting them go ahead, as if hiding behind their dead bodies.

Of the three passages, only one remained free, and without hesitation I ran into it. I soon realized why the infected didn't come out of this passage – there was a dead end with high two-story garages and a transformer box in the middle, around which a U-turn was made for cars. Looking back, I realized that there was no way back – the infected were inexorably approaching, filling the passage with themselves. My heart was pounding so hard that it was hard for me to hear my thoughts.

I didn’t even understand how I ended up on the roof of the transformer box, and in a minute a crowd of bloodthirsty citizens surrounded it from all sides. Making sure the infected couldn't climb, I lay down on the roof so that I couldn't be seen.

After lying for some time, looking at the sky and listening to the screams of the infected, I regained my breath and came to my senses a little.

Chapter One – Stronghold

The sky before my eyes was clear, and it seemed that I had never seen it so bright and deep blue. Now, in general, all things were perceived differently, especially those that were not particularly appreciated before. Even the chirping of birds and the chirping of insects in the grass was somehow perceived differently and had a special value, as if very soon this would never be heard again.

Despite the fact that around the transformer box, on the roof of which I was lying, looking at the sky, a crowd of stinking gray "ghouls" wandered around, I did not feel their smell. It smelled of wet roofing material, and for some reason I really liked this smell.

I sat down and looked at my watch, it was nearing dinner time. The infected below subsided a little, losing sight of me, but they were not going to leave anywhere – I was still trapped. In the aisle between the garages, through which I came here, there were also three caricatured characters: a fat, skinny and hunchbacked woman with a hand gnawed to the bone. Rolling over on my stomach, I crawled along the perimeter of the roof, studying the situation. On the left side, I found a high staircase, which I did not immediately notice. She led to the roof of a two-story garage, and from there there was a direct road into the forest. This was my only way to salvation, only the descent from this damned roof separated me from the stairs, and then it was necessary to somehow overcome about ten meters of the passage clogged with bloodthirsty citizens.

On the opposite side was a garage with large gates, clearly designed for freight transport. Theoretically, it would be possible to throw something heavy into this gate. The roar should have been strong, and perhaps it would distract the attention of the infected from the stairs. I looked around, but found nothing more suitable for this purpose than my axe.

On the other hand, there was nowhere to hurry, and I could just wait until the infected dispersed out of boredom on their own, and I would have the opportunity to run across to the saving stairs.

I decided that this is how you can wait indefinitely, especially since I have already seen how the infected froze, as if sleeping standing up, waiting for the victim. Therefore, crouching down and trying to avoid being noticed with all my strength, I threw the ax at the large iron gate of the neighboring garage.

The rumble turned out not weak, as I expected. Frightened birds flew up from the trees twenty meters behind the garages, and sounds from below suggested that the infected were beginning to gravitate towards the sound.