WWZ Sweden
Chapter 3: The Great Panic
Landvetter Airport, Gothenburg, Sweden
[I land at Landvetter Airport in the outskirts of the city. I am
greeted by Peter Johansson, a blonde giant with a big smile on his
face. He hugs me and offers to carry my luggage. After a couple of
security checks we enter the boarding area. I notice the guards
and surrounding crowd are saluting him, even though I know for a
fact that he has no military rank. As I look around at the smiles
and hear the numerous children laugh, it's hard to imagine the
carnage that took place at this very spot during the outbreak.]
I was your average Swedish teenager when the infection hit, meaning I
excel at basically nothing and did okay at almost everything. My brother
and I were playing Megaman when we got interrupted by our mom more
or less crashing through the front door. "Turn on the news channel!
NOW!". Little did we know that all the TV channels were showing news,
and it wasn't just any ordinary broadcast either. It was the Israelis
announcing their voluntary quarantine. The weeks that followed were a
constant bombardment of one hectic newsfeed after another.
What was your first impression of the Israelic declaration?
At first we thought it was nothing but bullshit. And the internet rumors of
zombies just made me shake my head. "Nobody can keep that big of a
secret" I was thinking "Somebody would've shown footage of these
things!". It wasn't until the news started talking about the African Rabies
that I started to wonder if there was something to this. Eventually there
were no more discussions, just cold hard facts.
But when you talk about our Great Panic there is one thing that needs to
be said. In Sweden there was really only a great big fat denial. The plague
came here pretty late in comparison to the rest of Europe. So we had time
to prepare, at least to some extent. Mostly it was refugees who carried
the infection, but the police were all over that. We enhanced our border
control with dog patrols at every harbor and airport. But the infection
wasn't limited to land, sea or air. There were transplant turners of course.
And even if those were very rare, ironically I think it was transplants that
started the bigger outbreak during that time. We didn’t exactly have
armed hospital security here. More like unarmed, unprofessional retards
with no sense of when to be cautious, or when to call the real police. And
even if they did, the police had to deal with the flood of refugees, so it
was up to those morons to handle the transplant incidents. From what I've
heard, a lot of people died needlessly because of their incompetence.
However, the fact of the matter is we had the luxury of having a sober
chaos. What we were dealing with can't compare to the horror stories we
heard from America or the European mainland. "Outbreak! Death tolls by
the millions! No hope! Man is doomed!" Just thinking about the broadcast
from Yonkers sends chills down my spine. But remember, in order to avoid
the hysteria of the news all you had to do was change the channel, or
better yet: turn off the TV or radio. As ignorant as that sounds, everyone
has their own way to escape the things that scare them, right? That's
pretty much what the Great Denial was really all about: shutting things
out and ignoring the facts. Keeping indoors, hugging a pillow and clinching
the remote was our escapism.
So what was your main concern during that period?
Since the police were overwhelmed by the refugees and occasional
outbreak there was really nothing to protect you from one of the biggest
threats of the z-war, people. The safety net was shredded and everyone
took whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Luckily we are a small
country and we don't own firearms in the same extent you Americans do.
So a burglar could find himself subject to "vigilante justice". More than
often people would kill any trespassers, or at least injure them severely.
Did your family ever have to deal with looters?
You could say that. Or you could say that the burglars had to deal with us.
It’s nothing I'm particularly proud of... [He pauses] it needed to be done.
We tried to protect our neighbors’ house for a while until my dad said:
"Screw it". They had left weeks ago. You see those kinds of people I
talked about that turned off the TV? That was our neighbors in a nutshell.
They were part of a selected few who still denied the ghouls even existed.
Can you believe that? Even with it happening at their very doorstep. They
just wanted to get away from it all, so instead they decided to take their
chances up north. Like so many others they hoped the harsh winters
would freeze the ghouls. Fucking hypocrites. Anyway, the number of
people who ran north was more than enough to fill the roads with cars,
but only for a little while.
Why is that?
The army was helping smooth things out. Since nobody was heading
south they opened up the entire highway. So people had twice as much
road to drive on. They supplied gas and sent military transports to the
hitchhikers. They had groups who pushed cars off the road to keep the
highway as clear as possible.
Another reason is because a portion of people thought it would be safer if
they stayed in their homes. Since Sweden and her neighbors were cut off
from the rest of the European mainland by the Baltic Sea, some people
figured there was nothing to fear. My family applied the same quote on
quote logic. [He makes the classic gesture with his hands high
enough to clearly be seen] Few people equal less, at least noticeable,
crime which in turn created an illusion of order. The army even sent a few
soldiers to the city, to help maintain a couple of key facilities and protect
the people who stayed behind.
Then something strange happened. After the army had arrived, the news
suddenly stopped their "Go north!" mantra and instead started to focus on
global news, exclusively. I thought it was weird. Why stop now? My dad
was having none of it. He was the one who convinced our family to stay
when our neighbors left. He kept saying: "They only stopped broadcasting
that because we've established a safe zone here. As always your old man
is one step ahead!". That was his thing. Somehow he always knew the
right timing. I could never understand it. I was the mama's boy and my
brother was the daddy's boy. We set up a couple of ground rules and kept
indoors at all times. We suspected a few ghouls still roamed the streets
downtown, why else would the army be here? But we never spoke of it.
Clinged on to that illusion of safety as hard as we could. Until they came,
out of the seas.
The infected?
I wish, but no: Refugees. Thousands, hell MILLIONS. The outbreak
couldn't be contained or halted in the European mainland, and so every
single person left on Europe's shoreline took whatever floated and
escaped to sea and brought the infection with them. We had taken care of
refugees before. But during that time there were enough cops to control
the situation. Now, when a lot of cops had fled north with the first wave,
we simply didn't have the manpower. These refugees didn't exactly follow
the normal traveling routes either. They just set sails and landed wherever
there was land. People from Germany, Poland and Holland to name a few.
Most refugee ships came from the south and south east. It was when we
heard about the chaos in Malmo that we convinced my dad we had to
leave. And since we were on the west side of Sweden further north, we
had a short window where we could get out of dodge. But because there
was a shortage on gas, escaping north by car was impossible. And we
weren't really the hiking type, so we had to find another means of travel.
The army supplied a few airplanes that were still flying people north. Well,
"few" was really the keyword in that sentence. And they weren't planes as
much as modified military drop ships with little to no space for people. But
hell, beats walking right? When we finished packing and got underway I
looked back through the rear window of our car and said goodbye to our
house. It looked so peaceful. The sunrise in the distance, the silence of
the town, it looked like I've always remembered it.
When we got to the airport everything was, surprisingly orderly. So
orderly it actually made me even uneasy. Wasn't there a war or
something going on? Had people forgotten the Malmo outbreak reported
not ten hours ago? But people were standing here, joking and laughing,
taking it really cool.
Security was tight. The army had deployed a couple of squads at
evacuation centers to help calm the masses. And of course to screen for
infected. We had to stand in straight lines and get checked by dog patrols
going into the various sections of the airport. Checking in luggage? Patrols
checked you, buying a bottle of water? Patrols checked you. Hell, they
even went as far as to check you every time you went to the friggin
bathrooms. It took forever to get anywhere. I could feel a lot of frustration
build up in the people around me. But as soon as we got cleared and a
majority of people had gotten thumbs up by the patrols, we could see the
planes waiting outside.
How did they manage to get everyone on the plane?
They didn't really get you on a plane per say. You had no tickets, meaning
there were no guarantees. You just got in line and waited for a maximum
number to board and the plane would leave. There were only five or so
planes and two were almost full, but since dad made us leave so early it
looked like we were getting on the third. My dad smiled his ”ahead-again”
smirk and pats me on the head. I forced a smile. The world was going to
hell, but at least we were safe. Little did he know it was about to blow up
in our faces.
I had my freestyle headphones on, listening to some music to calm myself
from all the stress. I was a music fanatic just like mom. Memorizing lyrics
and solos and drum rolls, even band history. I could've probably come up
with a z-cure if I had the same interest for medicine. [Laugh] I was at
the beginning of Baba O'Reilly with The Who, one of the tunes that really
zone me out. When suddenly I heard a sound that wasn't in the song. I
thought my freestyle was broken so I turned it off, but I noticed I could
hear still hear it. A faint strange sound that I had never heard before,
except on television. That's when I looked out the window.
[He gestures to the big hallway windows covering the boarding
section]
Soldiers came out of the woods. At first only one or two of them, running
their asses off. Then a whole company came rushing. I wish I hadn't
looked out the window. Because one guy saw me looking, turned in my
direction and then another and another. Soon all of us were looking at the
fleeing soldiers. “Where the hell are they going?” I thought. “Aren’t they
supposed to monitor the perimeter around the airport?” Then we saw pale
slouching figures emerging from the tree line. There weren't many of
them, just a few. But remember: we hadn't seen any big outbreaks. We
had just heard about it on the radio. And even then, only the newsfeeds
we chose to listen to. Watching the soldiers flee, the ghouls emerging
from the trees sent my image memory into overdrive. Images of Yonkers,
Africa, Germany, and Malmo, everything I had seen about these things in
the past weeks exploded before me. I could feel my body trembling like a
leaf in the wind.
The illusion of security was finally shattered. Everyone was silent, I
imagine they had a similar experience. Then some jackass broke the
silence by screaming: "They're coming!", and with those words he
successfully triggered an explosion of anxiety and panic. Everyone around
me started to shriek, pushing one another aside and stampeded towards
the planes.
I started to feel sick to my stomach, my legs were giving in, I could hardly
breathe and the frantic crowd wasn't helping. I lost my brother in the
mob, but I could still see my dad up ahead. I tried to make my way to his
side when suddenly I realized my mom had vanished as well. I had to find
her! I stopped to look for her when I felt something soft beneath my feet.
There were people lying on the ground, being trampled to puddles of
mush by hundreds of rampaging feet. I felt the sickness growing stronger
and more intense. I tried to make my way forward, backward, or
anywhere. But I felt so awfully young and weak.
A couple of the planes were taking off, making people even more hectic.
They smashed the windows and jumped out of the airport and onto the
walkway. Brilliant plan! A lot of them broke their legs while jumping. Not
only that, but the ones that cleared the fall wasted their last strength
trying to chase down an airplane. They ran straight up to the incoming
zombie herd. I looked down and tried to block their screams from my
head. That's when I saw my mom. She was lying on the ground with her
back towards me. She wasn't moving. Blood came out of her open mouth.
I went fucking nuts. I kicked people away, trying to make her some room.
I even bit a guy who stepped on my mom, big mistake. "Oh my God I got
bitten!". Great, like the shit hadn't already hit the fan. On the plus side
people started to run away from him, giving me a path out of the masses.
I used all my strength to drag my mom away from the crowd.
I screamed for help and looked for a familiar face. I looked for my father
and saw him at the head of the crowd, heading towards the last plane, the
ONLY plane who was still waiting. Ahead as always. My dad stopped at the
plane, turning to look for me and saw me on the other side of the broken
windows, hugging what was left of my mom. Our eyes stayed locked for a
while, and then he turned his gaze and stepped onboard. He wasn't
coming back for me. Hell, he still hasn't.
The final plane was taking off, a portion of the crowd fell to their knees,
and others got more aggressive, bashing the walls or just started bawling
and cursing fate.
I was now all alone. Trampled bodies and blood covered the floor. My
brother was gone, my father was gone and my mom-
[He takes a deep drawn out sigh.]
I can't remember if I was crying. I can remember all the notes for the
Free Bird guitar solo, but I can't remember if I cried no matter how hard I
try. My mom was alive not five minutes ago. And now she lay dead in my
arms. That's when I felt something inside me snap. I stood up and started
to run. I just wanted to get home. I think that I hoped that if I got back
home, everything would return to normal or some shit like that. Kids’
logic, if you can call that chain of thought logic at all.
[We move out of the building and into the parking lot outside.]
When I came out of the airport I realized I must have been sitting in there
for some time. The ghouls were all over the parking lot. The road we had
taken to the airport was now filled with cars. Hundreds of them, covering
every corner of the road and beyond. Some people had tried to get to
their cars anyway, thinking maybe they could get out of the parking lot
and onto the highway. The cars were crashing into one another by the
minute, only to be immediately surrounded by zombies. The air was filled
with a stench of burning petrol and blood. You heard screams, explosions,
gunfire, car alarms and the infamous zombie moans.
Didn’t any of the soldiers try to restore order?
[His eyes get filled with hatred.]
Let me break it down for you. The soldiers were here to protect the "bait".
That’s all we were to them. That’s why the news stopped talking about the
north. That’s why my family and a whole lot of other people were now
besieged by the infected, and that’s also why a lot of soldiers just jumped
into their vehicles and left us in the dust trail. They didn't even try to fight
for us, they weren't supposed to. At first I was depressed, watching them
taking off. But it was quickly replaced by anger when I saw how they dealt
with refugees trying to follow them. We’ve all heard the stories of how
soldiers were preventing people from pursuing them. You know, pushing
them off tanks and whatnot. But that was nothing compared to how our
military reacted. Anyone within close proximity of a tank or military
vehicle got shot. No warnings, no threats, no nothing. They just took aim
and fired. No use asking our current military if that’s valid or not. No
chance in hell they'll ever admit it.
As you can imagine, it was too much to handle. I just wanted to get away
from it all. "Just get home! You'll be safe there! Just run!" I don't
remember exactly when I stopped, maybe when I realized I couldn't hear
anything or just that I was out of breath, whichever one it was I couldn't
keep running. I looked around me to find I was on some sort of forest
path that ran above the highway, and over the hills towards Gothenburg.
Luckily this was some kind of bicycle road so there were signs to point me
in the right direction. Otherwise I would've never found my way home.
I stopped to look at the highway a couple of times. I saw a lot of people
among the cars. Some of them were moving towards the airport, others
were heading back towards the city. At first I thought they were refugees
who abandoned their cars and decided to walk. Then I heard the moaning.
Zombies were coming from the city?
Yep. Apparently the soldiers had abandoned the city as well. Without
protection a lot of the people that stayed behind got overwhelmed by the
infected.
Some areas of the highway had zombies in big lumps scattered here and
there. That sent chills down my spine. Those same lumps were the kind
that I had seen on the parking lot. They were feeding. I threw up when I
saw one of them with a tiny arm between his teeth. But I decided not to
dwell on it; there was nothing I could do for those people. And there was
just one more hill to climb then Gothenburg would be at my feet.
As I came to the top of the hill I got a great view of the destructive force
of the infected. There were fires in the distance. The newly infected from
downtown combined with the southern infestation into one gigantic horde
now flooding the streets of Gothenburg. The sounds I ran away from at
the parking lot were back. At least I think so. You see, the moaning was
so loud I could barely hear anything else. No screams, no gunshots, just
that fucking moaning! This shit was everywhere, "zack" as you call them,
were everywhere. There is no such word as "safe" anywhere. It was my
turn to fall to my knees.
Everything had gone to shit in a couple of hours. The infection had struck
and struck hard. I started to bash my head against a tree. I started
screaming: "Wake up! WAKE UP!". Bad idea. I heard something behind
me. I picked up a thick branch, spun around and stared at a blurry figure.
I was too disoriented to make it out. It started to come towards me. I felt
a strain of blood run down my face, I stumbled and fell face down into the
mud. I think my thought chain was something like "It's okay. Just take
me. There is nothing left to live for anyway." But then I felt a warm hand
dry the blood from my eyes. I looked up. It was an elder woman and she
was very much alive. "Take it easy there champ. You need to be fit for
fight if we are going to survive." I took a long drawn out sigh of relief. At
least I wasn't alone anymore.