Degeneration Read Free

found amidst the rubbish in the garage in my balcony lookout point, it would give me some peace of mind on night shifts.
    When the electric grid went out, drinking water no longer made it to the house. Luckily, when I bought the house I had a water tank installed on the roof. At least we wouldn't need to use our bottled water to take a shower or wash the dishes. It would be hard to get filled up again, but at least we'd have hot water without having to heat it in pans.
    Soon I discovered that we weren't the only living beings in the village. Through my binoculars, I could see that someone had hung a sign on one of the houses near the supermarket. The house belonged to Justinian, a rabbit farmer whose farm was near my father-in-law's. The sign read: S.O.S. - PEOPLE ARE HERE.
    Truth be told, I never went to offer them my help. They didn't offer to help me either, so I suppose it was a tie for thoughtlessness. To be totally honest, although it may seem a little selfish, I didn't care in the slightest that they were there. My only worry was my family: to protect them and take care of them, even if it meant losing my own life.
    During the following six months, I kept the situation under control. Navarrés was a quiet village, but the streets filled with dirt and grime. In all that time, my journeys to the street were few; I only worried about dragging away the zombies that I took down from the balcony. I used the empty cans from our canned food to teach Beatriz, my wife, to shoot. I gave shooting classes to my son, Sebastian, too.  He seemed to enjoy the zombie epidemic as if it were a videogame. Waiting usually filled the day, while a sort of tense calm fell over the night. Beatriz and I tried as hard as we could to maintain an optimum state of well-being in that desolate environment and, protected by the four walls of our home, we tried to lead a respectable life: taking care of our little one and doing what we could to make him happy.
    But, the day soon came when the canned goods ran out and there were hardly any more jugs of water left in the garage. That's the day when I had to cross the village to get to the supermarket....

2
    A n irritable dawn.
    In the cinema, in literature, on TV, in videogames....  We've become intimately familiar with the living dead who have always been ingrained in our culture. But, you're never really aware of just how terrifying a zombie can be until you have one right in front of you. When you're just a few feet from one of them –when you smell their foul breath from beyond the grave and you see their decomposing faces– your legs shake and your pulse picks up as you fear falling prey to their insatiable appetite. It is in that exact moment that you truly understand the meaning of the word terror .
    The day was sunny in Navarrés, although the nearing end of autumn had brought with it the first chilly mornings. December was just around the corner and we'd soon have to turn on the heat. In other times, the arrival of winter wouldn't have been a problem: a higher use of resources was covered by the electric network and, so, we were never without power and our batteries were always charged. But, without electricity, we ran the risk of blackouts: from then on, we were going to have to cut back on our power consumption to avoid the dangers of the dark.
    A moment before leaving for the supermarket, I peeked into the little guy's room: Sebastian was entertaining himself with a videogame. The child looked away from the screen a second and smiled at me. He still didn't know what was really happening, that the world as we knew it had come to an end. Sebastian would never see his friends again; he'd never go back to school, nor would he play on the swings in the park. How do you explain to a child that his life will never be the same? I didn't have enough courage to do it and I hoped that, with time, he would realize for himself that our lives had changed and that we were very lucky to still be alive.