Title: The Collector of Memories
Author: Kassfinol
All rights reserved
Genre: Post-apocalyptic – Moral horror
Elena wiped the blood off the form with a damp rag. The paper came apart a little at the corners, but the text was legible: Death Certificate #4,731.
She’d found it in the civil registry offices, along with whole boxes of blank forms. Two years after the outbreak, and she still had enough left for three more years of documentation. That is, if she could get more ink for the printer. The last bottle of ink had cost three cans of tuna.
She typed carefully: Roberto Valdez (name inferred from ID). Male, 43 years old. Infection: bite on right forearm. Death: October 23, 2027, 2:47 p.m. Immediate cause: cardiorespiratory arrest secondary to viral infection.
She signed at the bottom as Civil Registry Officer and stamped the official seal she’d rescued from her old office.
Roberto Valdez’s body lay on the warehouse floor, three meters from her desk. The bite on his arm had stopped bleeding twenty minutes ago. His open eyes stared at the ceiling with an expression of surprise.
Elena approached and closed his eyelids. Then she took off his wedding ring and cut a lock of hair with her office scissors. Five centimeters. She always did it that way.
She put the lock in a recycled plastic bag —the sterile bags had run out months ago— and labeled it with a marker: Sample #4,731.
She washed her hands in the basin with water she’d boiled that morning. She no longer had antibacterial soap. She used ash mixed with water. She scrubbed until her skin burned. It wasn’t enough. It never was enough. But it was what there was.
A guttural roar echoed from the street.
Elena froze. She peeked through the boarded-up window. An infected man, thirty-something, in stage three of the transformation, dragging his feet across the asphalt. His jaw hanging, white eyes, grayish skin. Searching. Sniffing.
Elena stepped back silently. Stage-three ones were dangerous. Fast when they detected movement. Violent. Insatiable.
She waited fifteen minutes until the infected man moved away, walked to Roberto’s lifeless body, pulled the small hunting knife out of his head, placed it on the desk, and then dragged the body to the basement, where she kept the other fourteen.
She had no formalin. She had no preservation chemicals. She only had lime, which she stole from abandoned construction sites, and industrial plastic bags. She wrapped Roberto carefully and covered him with lime. It wasn’t perfect, but it slowed decomposition.
Someone had to document this. Someone had to keep the official record of who had died, how, when. Because when it was all over, if it ever ended, someone would need this data.
A metallic bang on the front door startled her.
“Archivist!” —shouted a human voice—. “Open the door!”
Elena took the hunting knife from the desk. It couldn’t be infected. The infected didn’t talk.
“We know you keep records in there! Open up before we knock it down!”
Elena hesitated. Then she walked to the door and slid the bolts open.
Three armed men came in. The leader had a scar crossing his face. The other two were younger, skinny, with that hungry look of looters.
“Shit” —said the scarred one, seeing the piles of forms, the boxes of files, the improvised shelves—. “It’s true. You keep filling out paperwork as if the world hadn’t gone to hell.”
“Someone has to keep the records” —Elena said.
“Sure. Very professional.” —The man smiled—. “I’m Marcos. You work for us now.”
“I don’t work with the living.”
“Well, start. Commander Hernández needs to find his family. And you, with your little papers, are going to help us.”
“I only document deaths.”
Marcos took out his pistol and shot at the floor, near Elena’s feet.
“I can destroy all this if you don’t cooperate. I don’t think you have many options. You’re in no position to choose.”
Elena reviewed her files for two days while Marcos and his men smoked in her warehouse, dirtied her floors, touched her documents with dirty hands.
Carla Hernández. Sofía Hernández. Marta Hernández. Missing June 2026. Sighting reports in the Alameda district.
Elena found three death certificates in her August 2026 file:
Certificate #2,247: Carla Hernández, 38 years old. Infection from bite on neck. Death: August 14, 2026, 11:23 a.m.
Certificate #2,248: Sofía Hernández, 14 years old. Infection from bite on arm. Death: August 14, 2026, 11:31 a.m.
Certificate #2,249: Marta Hernández, 10 years old. Infection from bite on leg. Death: August 14, 2026, 11:45 a.m.
She placed the three certificates on her desk. Marcos read them slowly.
“Did you find them dead?”
“Correct. All three were infected. On Bolívar Street, at the corner with Alameda. I documented them properly.”
“And the bodies?”
“In the basement. Preserved with lime. Numbers 2,247, 2,248, and 2,249.”
Marcos looked at her as if she’d just said she had three heads.
“You kept… the Commander’s family’s bodies?”
“Naturally. For future identification purposes. They were evidently a family; I hadn’t come across an almost complete family… it was necessary to document all the evidence. I took them in the truck: they weren’t stiff, so I laid them on sheets and tied them with ropes so they wouldn’t move. There was no rush; it was methodical work, like any other procedure.”
“Take me there right now!”
Elena led them to the basement. The plastic bags were stacked against the wall, numbered with thick marker. The smell of lime and slow decomposition was penetrating.
“Numbers 2,247 to 2,249” —Elena said, pointing at three wrapped bundles.
Marcos looked at the bags for a long moment.
“The Commander needs to see this. Get ready. You’re coming with us.”
“I can’t abandon the archive.”
Marcos aimed his rifle at her.
“It’s not a request.”
Commander Hernández’s headquarters was fortified with concrete walls and barbed wire. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter. Inside, everything smelled of industrial disinfectant.
Hernández was a neat man, military, with precise manners. His office looked like it came from the world before the outbreak… the tidy desk, impeccable files, maps on the walls.
“The Archivist” —Hernández said—. “I’ve heard strange things about you.”
“I keep the civil records up to date” —Elena answered, shrugging her shoulders—. “Someone has to do it.”
“Admirable.” —Hernández opened a folder—. “Marcos informed me you found my family’s death certificates. From over a year ago.”
“Correct. August 14, 2026. All three died of viral infection.”
“Do you know how exactly they died?”
Elena took copies of the certificates out of her bag and spread them on the desk.
“I found them in stage one of the infection. Recently bitten. Still conscious, but with high fever and the initial convulsions; their transformation was inevitable.”
“And what did you do?”
“I eased their passing. A blow to the back of the head, quick, before the transformation completed and they became violent infected. Then I documented the deaths properly.”
The silence in the office was absolute.
“You killed them?” —Hernández asked slowly.
“I spared them the suffering. The infection was irreversible. Turning into one of those monsters is a fate worse than death. I acted with mercy.”
Hernández closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was something dark in them.
“Did you know a cure or a treatment was being worked on?” —he looked at her incredulously— “Do you know what date it is today? Why are you lying to me?”
“October 9, 2027.”
“Exactly.” —Hernández took a document out of his folder—. “This is the medical report from the North Sector Research Center. Date: March 20, 2027. Seven months ago they developed a serum that stops the infection if administered within the first six hours post-bite. The survival rate is seventy-two percent.”
Elena felt something cold sliding down her back.
“Since March” —Hernández continued—, “hundreds of people have been saved. Children, elderly people, soldiers. All of them would have died without the treatment. But now they live.”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“Of course you knew! Don’t lie to me, you wretch!” —Hernández threw more papers on the desk—. “These are reports from recent months. Encounters with survivors who reported seeing a lone woman, dressed in office clothes, approaching newly infected people. Offering them supposed help. And those people disappeared. They never reached the shelters. They never received treatment… You’re lying! I can see all your lies in these reports.”
Elena shook her head.
“I only document…”
“How many?” —Hernández interrupted—. “How many people have you killed since the cure existed?”
Elena did mental math. From March until now… seven months…
“Three hundred forty-two” —she whispered—. “But they were all infected. They were all going to turn…”
“THERE IS A CURE!” —Hernández roared, slamming the desk—. “Three hundred forty-two human beings who could have been saved! You have everything disgustingly well organized and with exact dates… that’s why we know the damn exact number of the people you murdered.”
“But… I was following the protocol… the established protocol…”
“What protocol? The world ended! There are no protocols! There’s only survival!”
Hernández stood up and walked around the desk. He grabbed Elena by the shirt.
“My family: Sofía and Marta. They had their whole lives ahead of them. Carla was immune because of her blood type, did you know? It was determined that some are; as long as the bite didn’t make them bleed out, immune people could live… I… I” —he ran his hand over his head; it looked like he might strangle her at any moment— “I just had to reunite with her. Her bite would never have progressed; she’d only feel bad for a while, but she’d survive… I bet the girls too… But you didn’t bother to wait. You didn’t bother to find out. You just killed them and filled out your damn forms… Damn the hour they ran into you!” —he shouted this last part with a sound that even seemed guttural.
“I… I was trying to help…” —the room began to spin.
“No… no and no! You were just trying to keep your illusion of order, to believe you had damn control. You kill people so you can file them away neatly! So you can put their names in perfect columns.”
Elena felt tears running down her cheeks. But even now, even with the truth destroying her, a part of her mind thought: I need to wash my face. I need to clean myself. I need to update the records.
Hernández ordered a box brought from his warehouse. Box #1,127.
“Open it” —he ordered.
Elena obeyed with trembling hands. Inside there was a death certificate and a bag with curly blond hair.
“Read the name.”
“Alejandra Mendoza. Six years old. Infection from bite. March 15, 2027.”
“Five days” —Hernández said— “after the cure was distributed. That girl had a mother. She had a brother. They arrived at the shelter two hours later looking for her. They said an official woman had told them to take the girl to give her treatment. The mother trusted. She never saw her daughter again.”
“I… I was helping…”
“HELPING!?” —Marcos, who had remained silent, finally exploded—. “My younger brother. You found him in July. Seventeen years old. A bite on the hand. You told him you’d take him to the treatment center. I looked for him for weeks. I found his death certificate in your file. Number 3,845.”
Elena remembered. A young boy, scared, crying. She’d told him everything would be fine. That he just had to sleep. And then… and then it had been so easy. A quick blow. And then the silence… The perfect order of silence.
“I thought… at first there was no cure… then I just… needed to continue the work… needed to keep working; it’s the only way I have to live.”
“Work?” —Hernández spat the word—. “Murder. That’s what you did. Serial murder disguised as bureaucracy.”
Elena sank into the chair. The numbers danced in her head. 4,731 documented deaths. How many of the recent ones had been savable? How many?
And the worst part: even now, even understanding the horror of what she’d done, a part of her still wanted to go back… still wanted to complete the forms… still needed the order.
Hernández didn’t kill her. That would have been merciful.
His men destroyed the warehouse. They burned the forms. The four thousand seven hundred thirty-one death certificates turned to ashes. They took the bodies out of the basement and cremated them properly, with rites, with respect, with names read aloud.
Elena was given a backpack with three days’ supplies and thrown out of the safe zone.
“Survive if you can” —Marcos said—. “But if we hear you’ve gone near anyone who was just bitten to document them again, we’ll kill you.”
Elena walked for hours through the abandoned streets. Aimlessly. Without purpose.
At nightfall, she heard a moan.
In an alley, a young woman lay against the wall. A fresh bite on her shoulder. Trembling, sweating, crying.
“Help” —she whispered when she saw Elena—. “Please… the treatment center… it’s six blocks away… I can’t walk…”
Elena knelt beside her. She took out of her backpack the only thing she’d saved: a blank form, a pen.
“Your name?” —she asked.
“What? I… María… María Solís… please, help me get to the center…”
“Age.”
“Why…? Please! Twenty-three years old! Help me!”
Elena wrote in perfect handwriting: María Solís, 23 years old. Infection from bite on shoulder.
“What are you doing?” —The girl tried to get up, but she was too weak—. “The center is close! You can take me! Please!”
Elena looked at the form. She looked at the girl. Then she looked at her own trembling hands, stained with ink, and remembered:
There was a cure. There was treatment. There was hope.
But without the order, without the records, without the perfect documentation… what was the point of it all?
Elena closed her eyes. When she opened them, she helped María to her feet.
“Let’s go” —she said—. “I’ll take you to the center.”
They walked slowly through the dark streets. María leaned on Elena, breathing with difficulty. Two blocks from the medical center, a group of stage-three infected emerged from a building.
Five of them, fast and hungry.
Elena pushed María behind an abandoned car.
“Run when I tell you” —she whispered—. “The center is over there; you have to run and don’t look back; don’t you dare stop for me.”
The infected approached, roaring, with horrible guttural sounds.
“Now!” —Elena shouted.
María ran, and Elena stayed behind, shouting, drawing the infected’s attention toward her.
The monsters lunged.
Elena felt teeth tearing her arm, her leg, her neck.
As she fell, with blood filling her mouth, her last thought was: I need to document this. Certificate number 4,732. My own certificate.
But there were no forms.
There was no order.
Only chaos.
Only the end.
THE END