The Age Of The Dead

Chapter 7: Silence

The shadows witness the disappearance of the last sound in the house. With the batteries from the wall clock on the table, Iñaki considers the task finished. The house is now a cemetery.

The clock on his wrist says 20:35, but it could be 3: 00 in the morning. People marked the passage of time with their routines...nowadays they do it and it's always dinner time. The day begins and they are ready to tear the skin of the living. The day ends and they are still there; with their empty eyes, their jaws open..."No, they do not mark the time," Iñaki concludes. "They are the time."

There, in the dark Iñaki listens as someone is torn apart by a horde of infected. It's the sound of every night. Some fool thinks that the darkness will play in his favor and not theirs. He ventures to dead Buenos Aires in search of anything and discovers that the infected do not distinguish between day and night.

Enclosed in those four walls, Iñaki learns from the mistakes of others. There is nothing he can do for those unfortunates...but there is something they can teach him: what not to do.

Iñaki goes to his room, drops his body on the bed, and falls asleep instantly.

Suddenly, a sound coming from inside the building awakens him. The barking of a dog. Rambo, the dog of the third - a marriage, his two sons, and Rambo - the German shepherd. Iñaki hasn't seen them in weeks. Maybe he's trying to protect his owners? Or, perhaps, defend against them?

A knock on the front door of the building makes Iñaki open his eyelids wide. Angry blows descend again and again on the iron and glass door. The barking of the animal seems to harangue him.

Iñaki's tired mind takes note and concludes that the infected are guided by sounds.

The kitchen window is located at the front of the building, five floors above the entrance door, so Iñaki decides to go to the kitchen and look out the window to see what is happening.

Iñaki navigates around the house trying not to trip over any objects. As he enters the kitchen he hits a beam of light….the utility pole across the street turns on and off, flooding everything with yellow for a second and then disappearing. Iñaki swallows and continues. He is three steps from the window. The noise doesn't stop. Two steps. He hears a roar, a step, hears glass breaking. Iñaki opens the window, leans on the edge, and looks down.

The corpse of a bald man knocks on the door. The artificial light is reflected intermittently on his greasy head, while the infected strikes again and again with his fists. If it continues like this, it may attract more of them. After his clashes with Black sweatshirt and Jose, Iñaki learned that hand-to-hand fighting is too dangerous. "If only I could get rid of him from here."

"I do not have a gun with which I can shoot from the window...also I have not fired a gun in my life."

"I could go down to the entrance and take care of him right there,"  but Iñaki discards the idea as quickly as he came up with it.

"The gravity of the situation surpasses me...gravity."

"Gravity," Iñaki repeats looking at the old microwave on his right. At that moment the light pole illuminates the smile on Iñaki's face.

After unplugging the device, Iñaki rests it on the edge of the window. The infected moves back and forth with each hit but does so in a small space. Iñaki picks up the appliance once more, stretches his arms forward, and points as an icy breeze hits his face.

Iñaki releases the microwave. Silence falls. For a few seconds, Iñaki watches as the microwave descends furiously, a few inches from the building's facade.

The sound returns with a bang as the device hit squarely against the zombie's skull and then announces with its little bell that the cooking has finished.

After the incident with the infected, Iñaki prepares to silence the dog. The animal is suddenly silent. Still, it's only a matter of time before he draws a legion of corpses to the door of his shelter….