The Secret of Evil Read Online Free Page A

them they
manage to overpower and kill the zombie, if such a thing is possible. Then they
flee down increasingly narrow and tortuous underground passages, until they
finally make their way out through the sewers to the surface. As they’re
escaping, Julie begins to feel the first symptoms of the illness. She’s tired
and hungry and begs the colonel’s son to leave her or forget her. His resolve,
however, is unshakeable. He has fallen in love with Julie, or perhaps he was
already in love (which suggests that he has known her for some time); in any
case, armed with the generosity of the very young, he has no intention, come
what may, of leaving her to face her fate alone.
    When they reach the surface, Julie’s hunger is uncontrollable. The
streets have a desolate look. The film was probably shot on the outskirts of
some North American city: deserted neighborhoods, the sort of half-derelict
buildings that directors who have no budget use for shooting after midnight.
That’s where they end up, the colonel’s son and Julie, who’s hungry; she’s been
complaining all the time they were running away. It hurts, I’m hungry: but the
colonel’s son doesn’t seem to hear; all he cares about is saving her, getting
away from the military base, and never seeing his father again.
    The relationship between father and son is odd. It’s clear from the
start that the colonel puts his son before his duties as a soldier, but of
course his love isn’t reciprocated; the son has a long way to go before he’ll be
able to understand his father, or solitude, or the sad fate to which all beings
are condemned. Young Reynolds is, after all, an adolescent, and he’s in love and
nothing else matters to him. But careful, don’t be misled by appearances. The
son appears to be a young fool, a young hothead, rash and thoughtless, just like
we were, except that he speaks English, and his particular desert is a
devastated neighborhood in a North American megalopolis, while we spoke Spanish
(of a kind) and lived, stifled, on desolate avenues in the cities of Latin
America.
    When the two of them emerge from the maze of underground passages, the
landscape is somehow familiar to us. The lighting is poor; the windows of the
buildings are smashed; there are hardly any cars on the streets.
    The colonel’s son drags Julie to a food store. One of those stores
that stays open till three or four in the morning. A filthy store where tins of
food are stacked up next to chocolate bars and bags of potato chips. There’s
only one guy working there. Naturally, he’s an immigrant, and to judge from his
age and the look of anxiety and annoyance that comes over his face, he must be
the owner. The colonel’s son leads Julie to the counter where the donuts and the
sweets are, but Julie goes straight to the fridge and starts eating a raw
hamburger. The storekeeper is watching them through the one-way mirror, and when
he sees her throw up he comes out and asks if they’re trying to eat without
paying. The colonel’s son reaches into the pocket of his jeans and throws him
some bills.
    At this point four people come in. They’re Mexicans. It’s not hard to
imagine them taking classes at a drama school, or, for that matter, dealing
drugs on the corners of their neighborhood, or picking tomatoes with John
Steinbeck’s farmhands. Three guys and a girl, in their twenties, mindless and
prepared to die in any old alleyway. The Mexicans show an interest in Julie’s
vomit too. The storekeeper says the money’s not enough. The colonel’s son says
it is. Who’s going to pay for the damage? Who’s going to pay for this filth?
says the storekeeper, pointing at the vomit, which is a nuclear shade of green.
While they’re arguing, one of the Mexicans has slipped in behind the till and is
emptying it. Meanwhile the other three are staring at the vomit as if it
concealed the secret of the universe.
    When the storekeeper realizes he’s being robbed, he pulls out a
pistol and