Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Read Online Free PDF

asked for time off work. Soon that might not matter.
    They invited me to go with them. My sister casually mentioned that a friend of hers who lives there would be happy to see me. I’m tempted, but I’ve left Lucullus alone, and I have to work on Monday. Plus if I stay, I might not get back to Galicia for a while.
    As we were talking, the venerable newscaster Matías Prats interrupted the program. With a long face, he reported that fifteen minutes before, there had been a thermonuclear explosion in Shanghai. It wasn’t an accident or an attack. The Chinese government itself had wiped the city off the map. Our jaws dropped. The entire city? Is that the way to deal with a disease? My God, there must’ve been millions of people!
    Germany has completely shut down all its nuclear power plants. They couldn’t keep the plants running because workers weren’t showing up for work. The United States, France, Italy, England, and Spain, too, it seems, are taking similar measures.
    No one’s heard anything out of Russia for hours. The army closed down their TV stations, and they finally managed to turnoff the Internet tap. Many bloggers, very active until today, now show no sign of life. According to Reuters, large areas of the country are in darkness, with no electricity. I hope they took the precaution of disconnecting their power plants. That’s all we need, another Chernobyl...
    News of the plague has been reported from every corner of the planet. The epidemic is now global.
    In the United States there are reports of looting, assaults, kidnappings, and widespread murder. In Europe we know almost nothing, because the crisis team isn’t saying a word. There’re plenty of rumors on the Internet, each one crazier than the last. Many witnesses agree on one thing: those infected sink into a state of deep confusion and become aggressive. From all over the world, there are reports of attacks by sick people. It looks like rabies. I don’t know what to believe.
    That night in Barcelona was very long. The sound of ambulances, army tanks, and police vans patrolling the streets kept me awake all night. I surveyed a section of the city out my window. The streets were deserted. No pedestrians. No traffic. The solitude was broken only by an occasional patrol car passing by, its spotlight lighting up doorways. Surely the situation will look different in the daytime when the curfew ends. For now, it’s shocking.

ENTRY 18
January 15, 7:11 p.m.
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    I’m back home. I’m completely exhausted. The trip home was awful, unbelievable. Lucullus is back. I’m going to sleep for a long time. Today I saw them kill a man at the airport. I don’t feel like writing.

ENTRY 19
January 16, 7:19 p.m.
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    Yesterday was really hard. Today’s no better. When I got home late last night, I was completely broken emotionally. It all started at the El Prat Airport on Sunday afternoon. The tense calm on Saturday had turned into hysteria. By the time my taxi pulled up to the airport, all hell had broken loose—long lines of people shouting and pushing, exhausted children sleeping on piles of luggage while their parents tried to get a ticket to anywhere.
    My flight was scheduled to leave an hour after I arrived at the airport. It was one of the last flights out of Barcelona. That same night, El Prat would be closed due to the state of emergency. Everyone who wanted to fly out of Barcelona was there. The problem was that the authorities wouldn’t issue a ticket to anyone who didn’t have proof he was headed for home. There weren’t enough tickets for everyone. That was clear. Panic had seized the crowd. There was constant pushing, screaming, and racing around.
    I made my way to the counter as best I could through a mob of hysterical people crowded together at the ticket windows. When I got to the counter, losing my coat along the way, I realized that the friendly counter clerks had been replaced by soldiers. Believe me, they weren’t smiling.
    I presented