World War Zed

3. Interview with: Aliana Sanchez

Cayamo, Cuba

Interview with: Aliana Sanchez

"I was there when they brought in the one who started it all. I was one of the few local people they let work inside the perimeter, probably due to my background. My Dad was in the US Air Force but had settled in Cuba when he met and married my mom."

Aliana pauses and breathes deeply from the oxygen mask hanging on the side of her wheelchair, waving away my offer of assistance with a dark-skinned and wrinkled hand. She has contracted a severe respiratory virus, one of the many virus mutations prevalent since the end of the War. Although she'll recover, it has left her wheelchair-bound for a couple of months and dependent on occasional whiffs of Oxygen. After a few deep breaths, she smiles and looks out over the startlingly blue water of Guantanamo Bay. The rotting remains of the infamous camp are still visible if you know where to look.

The eighty-year-old Aliana is obviously a tough woman and despite her ailment is determined to carry on with the interview. We are sitting in the stunning gardens that surround her small house and before we commenced our talk, she took time to make sure that I had seen all the unusual plants that she has gathered.

Taking occasional restorative draughts of oxygen, she resumes her narrative.

"At the time of the outbreak, I was a gardener and I was allowed inside the main fence to help maintain the grounds. Sometimes some of the prisoners would be allowed to help me, although they were always closely watched by armed guards, even though they couldn't run more than about four feet in all the chains. The "detainees" as we were meant to call them were from all over the place; some seemed like really decent guys, although some should definitely have been locked up somewhere a lot darker in my opinion.

"I was tending the roses by the main gate to the compound on the day it all started. I was very proud of my small patches of flowers dotted around the fences. Some of the prisoners there took great pleasure in the small flashes of colour and smells; I think it reminded them that there was still life outside the fences.

"That day was the first day of the War for me. A bus rolled in around midday, and you could hear the guy inside screaming blue murder at the guards in the can with him. They rolled into the drop-off point after going through the double gates and obviously decided they'd had enough of him. The doors to the bus opened and they threw him out onto the dirt of the exercise area.

"All the other detainees were wandering around the yard getting their hour's worth of exercise for the day. He hit the floor with a thud and scrambled to his feet, whirling around with a mad look in his eye. Three men in uniform came out of the bus, two of them holding their arms where he'd obviously injured them; the third was flexing a hand in pain. The chief warder came out and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing and they explained the prisoner had gone mad and started biting them.

"At this point, the new prisoner made a run for it, bowling straight into one of the groups that were wandering disconsolately around the yard. He was biting and snapping at people and a mass brawl started from nowhere. Suddenly it was all shouting and fighting and several of the uniforms got stuck in with truncheons and gun butts. Then it happened.

"A few of the guys in there really were nut-jobs. I've no idea whether they'd done what everyone said, or whether being in that place had driven them mad. I made no judgments on the men in there, but a few had that burning zeal stamped into their eyes. As the distraction escalated, one attacked a guard and grabbed his gun. He turned on one of the guards who had come in on the bus and shot him. I saw it hit. The bullet left a bloody splatter across his chest and he hit the floor, unmoving. There was stunned silence for a few seconds and all hell broke loose again. A guard returned fire, catching the zealot in the shoulder and spinning him off his feet. Another prisoner picked up the gun and shot another of the new guards: another shot and another prisoner fell. All the while, the new prisoner was dancing mentally through the throng, biting and snapping and frothing at the mouth. Then, abruptly, there was silence. In the quiet, the prisoner who had gone on the rampage finally hit the floor and started twitching.