Азизбек Карамзин - Apocalypse «Beginning of the End»

For me, as for others, the end of the world (if you can call it that) came unexpectedly, but I was much more fortunate than many, because he found me in a relatively safe place. From the top of the mountain, on which the construction town settled, which has now become my refuge, it was clearly visible that something terrible was happening in the city. Fires and shots, and sometimes even explosions, have now become commonplace.

It all started with disturbing news reports that I watched in the morning, waking up in my hotel room. Every day there were more and more reports, and the events described in them looked more and more like fantastic plots from a horror movie. News releases so excited and occupied me that I had to be late for work, inspecting the next emergency inclusion of live broadcast. Very soon, the events taking place became so large-scale that all channels stopped broadcasting anything but them.

Two weeks passed before the horrors of the news spread to the streets of Leninsko-Kuznetsky. I have not yet encountered them, but only heard about the first infected from people with whom I spoke at work. And then one day, none of my employees came to the shift, calling and finding various excuses for this. In the city, single shots and the roar of automatic bursts were heard. The sirens did not stop day or night.

As usual, I tried to call a taxi, but I could not get through to the dispatcher.

About a month later, cellular communication and the Internet disappeared, completely depriving me of information about the epidemic spreading in the world. However, the dynamics of past events and the way the connection was lost spoke very eloquently that nothing good was waiting for me, like other people.

The world as I knew it was dying. A terrible epidemic struck city after city, country after country with such swiftness that the hair stood on end.

According to the Internet, foci of infection were identified around the world in the first two weeks. The infected, maddened, rushed at people, trying to bite them and even eat them. After some time, the bitten ones also went crazy, and they themselves rushed at others, even if they were members of their family: an elderly mother or a defenseless baby huddled in a corner … It doesn’t matter … The infected turned into real animals, striving to plunge their dirty smelly teeth, thereby spreading a deadly infection.

YouTube was filled with gory videos of infected lunatics throwing themselves at healthy people and tearing them with their teeth. Unfortunately, the Internet was slow and the videos had to be watched in very poor quality, but this did not prevent us from realizing the scale of the disaster around the world. First, quarantine was introduced and borders were closed, and military checkpoints appeared at airports, railway stations and sea routes. Then they talked about mass desertions among the military. After some time, the government stopped commenting on anything at all. It became obvious that he was no more, and the government could not protect anyone.

People saw death through the windows, it was bursting at their doors. Fear, spiced with the smell of blood and death, was in the air, and everyone felt it. The cacophony of breaking glass, gunshots, screams, car alarms, the howls and groans of the infected turned into an endless rumble that made the blood run cold.

A little later, videos began to appear in which brave guys taught how best to kill the infected. It turned out that it was not so easy. The Infected were not susceptible to pain, and even gunshots did not immediately kill them. But a good blow to the head or spine killed on the spot. The people who told this also said that one should not be afraid to take the life of the infected, even if it is a relative or close person. They are already dead, and what is standing in front of you is a monster in the guise of your loved one. About a week later, there were reports that military depots were to be reopened, and civilians were given weapons (one barrel per hand) and a certain number of cartridges for it. Weapons were issued according to the passport and only to those who did not have a criminal record. Judging by the news, despite the general devastation and the fact that almost the entire army fled, there are still people who are true to their duty. Only thanks to them in the cities there were still some echoes of the former order.

Then I found out where the point of issuing weapons was in Leninsko-Kuznetsk, but I could not bring myself to go there, coming up with new excuses for myself every day. I was ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid … afraid, as never before in my life, to the point of trembling in my legs. Here on top of the mountain I was safe. The supplies of food and water should have been enough for a long time, and I really hoped that by the time they were running out, everything would settle down and return to the usual course for everyone.

After the connection was gone, in addition to my own skin, I was only worried about the fate of my sister and her daughter. Katya divorced her husband and moved, as she herself put it, “for a while” to live with me. It happened exactly a week before the first news about the epidemic. At that time, I, accustomed to a lonely life in a small apartment in the center of Novosibirsk, gladly agreed to a business trip to Leninsk-Kuznetsky, because my seven-year-old niece Vika was still a wild child, and after the “family reunion” it was impossible to rest in my house and dream. No, of course, I loved my sister and nephew very much, especially after the death of my mother they were the only relatives. They just appeared in my measured life at the wrong time and very impudently. I was glad to be able to leave them for a while. Now the thought of

While there was a connection, I talked to Katya on the phone almost every day and knew that my relatives were relatively safe. As soon as the riots began, Katya's ex-husband arrived and took them and Vika to his cottage outside the city.

Despite his addiction to alcohol and a strong temper, Oleg was an intelligent man and did a lot for the family. I knew this from the rare family gatherings at which I had the chance to talk to him. Later, Katya told that the military came to their cottage settlement, and, having occupied the territory, turned the settlement into a refugee camp. Since the settlement was surrounded by a high brick wall, an excellent fortified place emerged, guarded by armed men. Katya tearfully asked me to return as soon as possible, and I promised to do this as soon as the situation cleared up a little.

I spent my days sitting on the rocks and watching through binoculars what was going on in the city. No one was extinguishing the fires, the shots were less and less frequent, and the streets, although there were few of them, were staggering around with the infected, whom I recognized by their shackled jerky movements. After some time at night, I began to hear a howl. He was clearly neither human nor animal. Even the infected, hearing him, tried to hide, wandering around the empty entrances and basements.

One night, in the light of the raging fires, I even managed to see a gorilla! It was a gorilla, I definitely saw it! She deftly jumped from the roof of the house to the balcony and disappeared into the darkness of one of the apartments. At that moment I was sure that I saw her, but now I doubted. Worse, the power went out. Whereas before I cooked on an electric stove and kept open cans in the refrigerator, now I had to cook on a campfire.

The place where I took shelter had enough food and water to last a whole construction team for a month, working on a cell tower and building a large communication center. For me alone it would have been enough for three months, no less.

However, it was strange that electricity did not disappear everywhere: in some parts of the city it was still available, appearing from time to time, and in other places, like on my construction site, it completely disappeared.

The position of the chief communications engineer I held required me to go on business trips to various cities and accept objects for rent, the construction of which my company TeleSeti carried out on a subcontract basis for large cellular companies.

In this mining town, my task was to accept the next node from the builders, as well as control the installation of the BS on top of the cell tower. I thought that it was the installation of the BS that would be the most difficult for me on this trip, since more than anything in the world I was afraid of great heights. Now, against the backdrop of the horror that was happening around me, the fear of heights seemed pitiful and insignificant to me.

My construction camp consisted of only three blue-colored cabins with white windows, four stone walls covering the cabins from the wind from the west side, and a huge bright yellow five-axle aerial platform weighing sixty tons, if my memory serves me right.

Alone, the hours and days dragged on slowly, and it became easier to convince myself that this place was not worth leaving.

I thought a lot about what was happening, and longing drove me crazy. Sometimes I was amused by the memories, for example, about my mortgage, which is now unlikely to have to be paid. True, and a decent area in which I bought an apartment, perhaps, it is already difficult to call it calm and prosperous. According to the sister, when the connection was still there, now everything was teeming with the infected.

At the entrance to the city, I saw a gas station and, not reaching it about two hundred meters, out of habit, turning on the turn signal, turned to the side of the road.

The city looked dead and abandoned. I tried to catch the details of the picture that formed such a feeling, but in vain – it was just felt in my gut. The smell of burning, to which it seemed that he was already accustomed, struck with renewed vigor. You could feel it even with the windows closed. It is not surprising, because half of the city was shrouded in black smoke, because somewhere in its other part a large factory or warehouses had been burning for a long time, and there was no one to extinguish them.

The rain was ending, and I clearly saw four gloomy figures on the territory of the gas station. One of them was a woman in a long white dress. She stood with her head resting on the gas station. Three more were near the motorcycle lying on its side. I knew for sure that they were infected: they seemed to be sleeping standing up, and I didn’t want to wake them up at all. The head ached a little. The morning came out painfully saturated, fatigue made itself felt.

Anyway, if I go to the gas station, I have to deal with these four ghouls, and that was the last thing I wanted in the world. It was clear that sooner or later I would have to face the infected and have to kill them, but I so wanted to postpone this unpleasant moment for later. I started making up excuses for not going to the gas station and thinking about the best place to get gas. The arguments "against" were very logical, in my opinion. What if the gas station is closed? After all, the speakers are turned on from the control booth, in which the armored glass, the lattice on the window and the reliable door are clearly not made of cardboard. In addition, I had no idea how gas stations are generally arranged and work. My knowledge in this area was limited to inserting a gun into the tank hatch and paying for gasoline at the checkout. And the devil knows how many more infected there are,

After looking around and making sure that there was no threat, I settled in a chair more comfortably and began to think about what other safe ways there were to get hold of gasoline. It seemed the most obvious to drain it from other cars, but for this, at least, a hose was needed, which would not be a fact that would help, because modern cars, as far as I knew, had a mesh installed in the tank chute. Although I didn't know for sure. The next idea, much more viable, in my opinion, was the opening of garages in some garage cooperative. Theoretically, in garages, people could store gasoline even in barrels, and, by definition, there should not be many infected there. I already liked the idea! I remembered how I passed one garage cooperative on the western outskirts of the city.