The Wanderers by Permuted Press Page B

minutes, and he knew perfectly well that the wanderers did not tire. Ever. No one like them knew how to force the human shell to limits that no one had even imagined.
    He turned the building’s corner and almost fell into the arms of a specter whose side appeared to be completely scraped off. The ribs emerged like the remains of a primitive dinosaur in a blackish sea, and the arm was barely a twisted bone on the shoulder, as a sinister totem sculpted by a madman. The specter growled hoarsely when it found Aranda practically in its arms, but it was too slow; the young man feinted and escaped, moving away with as much speed as possible. Just a few seconds later, the pursuing zombie horde ran the specter over with the strength of a bull. The specter was thrown to the ground and disappeared under the trampling feet of the group.
    While he was running, Aranda passed by doorways and open businesses. It was a trap, he knew it all too well, a maze of closed doors and corridors that led to nowhere, but he felt in his chest and his side that if he continued running with such intensity, he was not going to last much longer, and the buildings’ entrances tempting were him.
    Finally, at scarcely a hundred-fifty feet away in a straight line he saw several iron fences that formed a square, cutting off the access to a canvas tent belonging to the maintenance services. A few inches away, there was an opening in the ground, a sewer entrance with its cover lying to a side.
    The sewers! He did not know how much he could move underneath the streets, or if the height of the tunnels would allow him to move around at all, but he did not think the zombies would be able to follow him down the hole, and much less down a ladder. He ran towards it, feeling that the distance that separated him from his pursuers was becoming increasingly shorter. He forced himself to make a final effort and he redoubled the speed when he found himself practically surrounded by the animal grunts of the specters. Finally, he pushed one of the fences to the side with his hip and threw himself down the hole, lifting his arms and placing his feet in front of him.
    An explosion of pain blinded him momentarily when he hit the ground. The visual sensation was white, in spite of the reigning darkness of the sewer. He was surprised to find himself on all fours, with his hands sunken into a mass of filth that felt much like mud. He looked upwards and saw hands and arms appearing into the manhole, shaking with nervous movements, grabbing for him. This sight comforted him, however; just as he had thought, the living dead lacked the dexterity to navigate the manhole.
    Aranda walked through the tunnels, happy to move as far away as possible from that ominous opening. There were enough grates and holes in the sewer exits to disperse the darkness enough for him to see where he was walking. He naturally worried that he would find a living dead person in the darkness of those tunnels, but he made an effort not to think about it; after all, he could only continue.
    He walked for what seemed to be an eternity. From time to time, he climbed up an ashen pipe to look outside through a grate. The times he could see enough, it was always the same spectacle; zombies erratically wandering through the dirty streets, swollen cadavers rotting in the sun, and scenes of abandoned cars making up confusing mazes. He at least knew that he was moving towards the north, going deeper and deeper into the western part of the city.
    At a point, he sat down on some cement stairs and he felt overwhelmed by a deep sensation of sadness and desperation. It seemed that all of Malaga had succumbed to the overpowering horror of the zombie infection. It was as if there was no one left at all. His dream of finding a redoubt controlled by survivors now seemed to him like a far-off and incoherent dream. How could he have let himself be carried away by such a puerile and senseless idea?
    He remained seated for a few minutes,