Free Degeneration by David Pardo Page A

fire. Photos were spread at an unbelievable rate, a few of which cleared up some doubts: an epidemic of starving zombies was devouring any living being that found itself in their path – and they were spreading through the country at an alarming rate.
    The city's leaders called an urgent meeting in the town hall and the mayor suggested that we go to the safe houses that the army had set up just outside the major cities. He was the first to flee to Valencia.  As he was a politician, his number-one priority was to save his ass. Almost all the inhabitants of Navarrés opted to follow in the mayor's footsteps, including all the police officers. I, on the other hand, decided to hunker down in my house and protect my family.  What place could be safer than my own home?
    I tried to get in touch with my parents, but there was no answer. I supposed that the city which had watched me grow had probably already been ravaged by zombies. I was sad to think that I had lost them, but this wasn't the time to feel bad: it was the time to keep fighting.
    The church bells were incessantly ringing all the morning. Some believers had decided to go barefoot or on their knees through the Stations of the Cross until arriving to the Holy Christ Hermitage, imploring a divine intervention that would never arrive. While my neighbors were loading their cars with clothing and personal effects, I was bursting into the supermarket to take necessary supplies: food, canned goods, seeds for planting crops, and batteries.  I took a shopping cart and ran through the aisles of the supermarket, pouring the contents of the shelves in the cart as I went.
    I left the shop, loaded the car to its brim with food, and closed the trunk forcefully. Next, I drove my 4x4 vehicle at high speed through the narrow streets of the village to get to the gun shop.
    The only gun shop that existed in Navarrés belonged to Mr. Bonifacio. He was an endearing man –a lover of hunting and of guns– and only had a few years left before he could retire. I stopped my 4x4 in front of the shop: it was closed. I was surprised that the inhabitants of the village were leaving without looting it; they trusted the army and the integrity of the safe houses too much. "What idiots," I thought. 
    The gun shop's exterior was bulletproof and I had to be a little creative with my entry technique. I backed up, put it in first, popped the clutch, and slammed on the gas. I closed my eyes just before impact as the front of my 4x4 broke the bulletproof glass in a fraction of a second. The alarm went off, but the police had already gone and nobody else seemed to care. I got out of my car and took a look at the front end: a couple unimportant scratches. I hurriedly filled the back seat with boxes of cartridges for my old hunting rifles. I also snatched two 9mm Parabellums and a large amount of munitions for the firearms. If I had decided to stay at home, I'd better show my wife and boy to shoot.
    When I was just about to get back in my vehicle and go home, I felt the locked case that held the imported weapons calling my name. Whenever I needed something from the gun shop, I always spent a minute drooling over those guns, feeling a special desire for the imposing Browning Maxus Composite , a semiautomatic shotgun made in America that shot 12/89 cartridges. Gun law made shop owners store these types of weapon in a locked safe, but Mr. Bonifacio knowingly ignored this rule so that his high-caliber toys could be displayed to the public.
    "It's a beaut, isn't it?" Mr. Bonifacio used to say to me, standing by my side and flashing me the friendly smile of a good salesman. "Once you shoot a super magnum, there is no turning back... its recoil is the closest thing to an orgasm that I know of. And boy, you have to have some strong arms to tame this beast, and I think you'd take to it like a fish to water."
    Mr. Bonifacio always tried to sell me the shotgun, but I just couldn't afford it. That day, with the gun shop