by James Harden
I can see the door moving with each thump and head butt. Each blow nearly knocks the door completely out of its frame and nearly knocks the book shelf over. The wood continues to break and splinter.
“Come on!” George says. “We don’t have long.”
I switch the lights out and the room turns black. I am completely blind and the darkness amplifies the noise of the infected. Their moaning howls. Their screams. Their assault on the door. It sounds like they are about to break through. They sound like they are about to destroy the door.
George, the prison administrator, turns on a small pen light. He places the pen in his mouth, between his teeth. He slides the loose ceiling panel further out of the way and pops another one out to reveal an air-conditioning vent.
The grate of the vent has already been unscrewed. The ventilation shaft is our escape route.
George shines the torch at me. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where does that lead?”
“It’s the air-conditioning vents. We can climb through it to get to my office. Come on.”
I climb up onto the desk as George climbs up into the vent.
“Give me those bullets,” he says.
I reach down and give him the small box of ammo. It feels disappointingly light.
“And those blueprints,” he says as he shines the torch on to the table.
I see a couple of rolls of long paper. I hand those up to him as well.
George then offers me his hand and I climb up into the ceiling, into the air-conditioning vent. And just as I climb up, I see the book shelf fall over, I see the door splinter and break apart. I see the infected on the other side. I see their bloodied heads. Their bloodied and disfigured faces. They are literally smashing their faces and skulls into a bloody pulp just trying to get in here.
And they don’t care. They don’t care that their faces are being destroyed.
They don’t care at all.
I am huddled in the air-conditioning vent. I am sort of hunched over. I don’t know which way to go. I don’t know what to do.
“Move out of the way,” George says. “Move ahead.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I need to replace the ceiling panel and the vent. They’ll find us otherwise.”
I wriggle my way forward, crawling on my stomach. George places the ceiling panel and the air vent back, covering our tracks.
“Come on,” he whispers. “This way.”
Chapter 4
We climb and shimmy and squeeze our way through the air-conditioning vent. The ventilation shaft itself is barely wider than my shoulders. This is no place to be if you suffer from claustrophobia.
George leads the way. Pen light in his mouth. I follow the soles of his shoes. They are caked with dust and blood.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
“Not far. It’s basically one office away. But we’ll be separated from the interrogation rooms.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I ask.
“The interrogation rooms and my office are separated by two sets of security doors. So yeah, we’ll be as safe as we could be.”
This is the first good news I have heard all day.
“And besides,” George continues. “She’s waiting for me. I can’t just leave her.”
“Who is waiting?”
“Her name is Kim,” he answers. “She’s a soldier. One of the General’s, I think.”
Kim. She had somehow escaped from General Spears and his death squad. She had somehow avoided all the infected who had infiltrated the inner-sanctum. And most importantly, she had avoided the man in the gas mask.
“She’s hurting bad,” George continues. “I can’t leave her. It was her idea to check for ammo. Smart kid.”
“Yeah,” I say. “She is smart. But she’s not a soldier. At least, I don’t think she is. She’s a cop. Or was a cop. Once upon a time.”
“Huh? You know her?”
“Yeah.”
“How? Where are you from again?”
“Sydney. I was in Sydney when the Oz virus hit. When ...”
Society crumbled. When the world ended. When the military ordered their containment protocol.
“Kim was there with us,” I say. “She was with me. We almost got out. We were so close. But we got separated.”
“She’s been down here awhile now,” George says. “I think she was part of some experiment. I’m not sure what they did to her. But whatever they did, they messed her up real good. She’s not doing so great.”
I think back to the last time I saw her. She visited Maria and me when General Spears was holding us captive in the shipping container. I got the impression then that something was wrong with her. I hope she’s OK.
We continue to shimmy along. It was slow going. I was glad for the fact that we didn’t have to go far.
“Maybe you can figure out what’s wrong with her,” George says after a while. “She comes and goes. But she’s struggling. Is she diabetic or something? Does she have a history of illness?”
Kim? She was a fitness freak.
“I’m not sure,” I say.
We finally arrive at another air-conditioning vent.
“This is it,” George says.
The grate has already been pushed aside, so all we have to do is climb down.
This is harder than it sounds.
George climbs down first. He basically climbs over the man hole, and then drops his feet and legs down into the office. He then climbs down backwards.
I hand him the ammo box and the blue prints and then I climb down, following his lead, climbing down legs first.
Kim is there. She’s curled up in the corner of the room. She is in the corner furthest away from the door. She’s either asleep or unconscious or dying. She looks pale. She looks like the last time I saw her in New Zealand, after she’d been shot, suffering from blood loss and extreme dehydration. This is weird because when I first saw her a few days ago, when she met Maria and me at the pier, just before we met the General, I thought she had looked fitter and stronger than ever before. Her gunshot wound had completely healed. Her skin was glowing.
What has happened to her in those few days? Why does she look so sick?
I try and think how long it’s been since I last saw Kim. How long had Maria and I been locked up in that shipping container for? How long were we held captive by General Spears?
It was almost a week. Maybe six days.
I lean over Kim and whisper her name. “Kim?”
Her eyes flicker and open. She recognizes me. “Rebecca?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you OK? What happened to you?”
“How did you... How did you get away? From the General? How are you still alive?”
I shake my head. “I don’t really know.”
Kim lowers her head. It is taking her considerable effort just to talk.
“So how exactly do you two know each other?” George asks.
“It’s a long story,” I say.
“How?” Kim asks again. “I thought you were dead. I thought it was all my fault.”
“No. I’m here. I’m fine,” I lie, trying to put on a brave face, trying to act tough, trying to put her mind at ease. “What’s wrong with you? What did they do to you?”
“Nothing,” she answers. “I’m good. I’m fine. I just need some water.”
George hands me a canteen. “It’s our only one.”
I suddenly realize I am thirsty as hell. And hungry. But Kim obviously needs it more than I do. I give her the canteen but she can barely raise her arms. So I have to feed her the water. Slowly, carefully. I do not want to spill any. I do not want to waste any.
Kim gulps it down.
Almost all of it.
The canteen is now extremely light. I know there is not much left. I feel rude and awful for asking but I need to. “Can I have some?”
“Might as well,” George says. “It’s not like we can stay here anyway. We have to keep mov
ing. We’ll probably need to get some supplies from the cafeteria. That’s our best shot.”
I drink the rest of the water. A few mouthfuls. It is not enough. I try and remember the last time I’d drank some water. Ate some food.
But it is hard to think.
My mind is blank.
My mind is dark.
I can’t remember.
It has been too long.
Too many dark days in that god forsaken shipping container. Waiting to die. Waiting to be executed.
Kim gets to her feet slowly and leans against the wall for support. She takes deep, deep breaths. Her face is sweaty. She is shivering. Her skin is pale and covered in goose bumps.
I have no idea what is wrong with her.
George walks behind his desk and sits down at his computer. He begins tapping away on the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking the security cameras. I need to know how many of them are out there.”
His fingers moved over the keyboard with speed.
“Who are you again?” I ask. “What is your job here? Or what was your job here.”
“I’m the administrator of this prison facility.”
“Administrator? What does that mean?”
“It means I’m in charge of this prison. I’m the warden. These rooms here are just the offices and interrogation rooms and holding cells.”
This was another piece of good news. At least George would know his way around this place.
Kim doubles over and starts coughing. She coughs hard like she is choking. She tenses up like she is having some sort of spasm or convulsion. She drops to her knees and crawls over to the waste paper basket next to George’s desk and throws up.
She doesn’t get all of it in the basket. Her vomit is pitch black. Like oil.
“What the hell did they do to you?” I ask again.
I suddenly remember back to what Doctor Hunter had told us.
We saved her. We cured her.
“Nothing,” she says. “I’m fine.”
“It’s not nothing,” I say. “Doctor Hunter told us. He told us what they did to you. He said they saved you. Rid your body of cancer. Injected the nano-virus directly into the tumors.”
Kim is silent. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to tell me.
“Is it true?” I ask. “Did you have skin cancer?”
She continues coughing. Hard coughing. The veins in her neck are bulging. Her face turns red. She is struggling.
“Where is Maria?” she asks between coughing fits.
I lower my head. “I don’t know. We were separated. The man in the gas mask took her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
At this point George completely stops typing. “What did you just say?”
I take a deep breath. I know I must sound crazy. I know I must sound like a stupid teenager telling a stupid ghost story. But they need to hear it. “There is a psychopath down here,” I say. “He is stalking these hallways. He is wearing a gas mask. The gas mask is stitched into his goddamn scalp. And he’s taken Maria. And he’s going to kill her.”
Kim sits down against the wall. “He’s taken Maria?”
I nod my head and a feeling of shame wraps itself around my body. I lost Maria. I let her go. It’s all my fault.
“It’s over,” Kim says. “We’ve lost. We screwed up.”
“Who is Maria?” George asks.
“Maria Marsh.” I answer. “She’s immune to the Oz virus. She’s the only person on record to have survived a bite from an infected person.”
George pulls up a file on the computer. It’s a picture of Maria. Her school photo.
“Is this her?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s her.”
“So it’s true? She’s immune?”
“Yeah. It’s true.”
“So why are they going to kill her?” he asks. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Kim says. “It’s over. No hope. No goddamn hope.”
“There is still hope,” I say. “We still have time.”
“What hope?” Kim says. “It’s over. Maria is dead. It’s over.”
“No,” I say, praying that she is wrong. “He’s not going to just kill her. He’s going to do it on camera. He’s going to record it and broadcast it to the world. He wants to show everyone. He wants everyone to watch. This means we still have time.”
I pray to god I am right about this.
“Why the hell would he do that?” Kim asks.
“Because Maria represents hope and innocence. She is the savior. The world knows that Maria is immune. And once the world knows that she is dead, they will know that there is no hope. They will know that there is no possible hope for a vaccine or an anti-virus or a cure or whatever.”
Both Kim and George are silent, thinking about the ramifications of what I have just told them.
I say, “This man, the one who has taken Maria, he is a psychopath. He is a killer. A mass murderer. And he wants to show the world. But this gives us time. It means he will need to prepare a connection. He will need to contact the outside world. He will need to record it.”
Because he is a showman, I think to myself. He has a flare for the dramatic. He will take his time. He will not rush this.
He is absolutely insane.
“But who’s to say he hasn’t already done it?” Kim asks.
“He can’t have already killed her,” I say because I don’t want to think about it and I can’t admit it.
Admitting that I am wrong, and that Maria is already dead, means that I might as well give up.
And I’m not ready to do that.
Not yet.
I look at my watch. Fifty-three hours and thirty-eight minutes. I have a feeling this means something. I have a feeling this countdown will coincide with Maria’s death. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why I have this feeling. Call it a hunch. A sick hunch. A feeling in my gut. A cold, awful, sinking feeling. Ben told me once that he would get a feeling like this in his gut when something bad was about to happen. He had come to trust this feeling with his life.
George shakes his head. “He won’t kill her. He won’t. Why would he? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Trust me, he, the man in the gas mask, is going to kill her. He is going to kill her because he doesn’t want to make an anti-virus or a cure. He doesn’t want to save anyone. He doesn’t want to help anyone. He wants to...”
Again, I trail off because I can’t say it out loud. He wants chaos and destruction. He wants total annihilation. He wants to destroy the world and society so that we can start over.
He wants to burn the old Empires.
I can’t say this out loud because it is absolute madness.
“Like I said,” I continue. “The man in the gas mask is a killer. A psychopath. A mass murderer.”
George stares at the computer screen. He is in deep thought. His brow is furrowed in concentration.
“Where are you from?” George asks me again. “You’re an outsider. How did you get down here?”
I catch him up. We were in the desert. We followed the tank tracks. The tank tracks disappeared. And then the Vehicle Access Point opened up and we were lowered into the Fortress.
“But the Lockdown,” he says. “The Code Black. The outbreak. You should not have been able to get in. Not after the Lockdown. No one gets in. No one gets out.”
I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that someone let us in on purpose.
They wanted us to come in.
Was it General Spears? Did he let us in on purpose?
Or was it the man in the gas mask?
I don’t know. I doubt I’ll ever know. But I do know this. We were allowed to come in. Someone, somewhere, pushed a button and let us into the Fortress.
George is still confused. “But what were yo
u doing in the middle of the desert to begin with? We’re in the absolute middle of nowhere. What the hell were you doing?”
“We were looking for our friends,” I say.
“You’re kidding, right?” he asks, completely dumbfounded.
I shake my head. “I wish I was.”
“It was suicide coming out here.”
“Maybe. But we had no other choice. We were already stranded. The infected are everywhere. The towns and the cities are completely overrun. The Oz virus has spread from coast to coast. So we made our choice.”
And we’ll live and die with the consequences.
Kim throws up some more black vomit.
I turn my attention back to Kim and I need to ask her more questions because I need answers. I feel bad for interrogating her but I have no choice.
“Where is Jack?” I ask.
Kim wipes her mouth. She is breathing hard.
When Maria and I first asked her this question, she gave us some bullshit answer about how Jack was fine and that we would be able to see him soon. She told us not to worry. She told us everything would be all right. The way she talked, it was almost like she had been brainwashed. Now that I look back, it was obvious that she was scared. Scared of General Spears. Scared of what he might do if she did anything that he might not approve of.
Scared of not following orders, the chain of command.
I can’t blame her. I’d be scared as well. General Spears had turned himself into a monster. He had lost his mind. He was dangerous and powerful and downright terrifying.
Kim is silent. She doesn’t want to answer me.
“The General is dead,” I say. “He can’t hurt you.”
“Are you sure about that?” she whispers.
“Sure about what?”
“Are you sure he’s dead? Did you see his body?”
“No, but...”
“But what? You don’t know for sure. You can’t guarantee my safety. You can’t guarantee anyone’s safety.”
“I didn’t say that I could guarantee anyone’s safety. I know we’re in a tough spot...”
“You don’t know that he’s dead,” Kim says. “You don’t know a goddamn thing. You don’t. I was dead. I was dead and they brought me back.”
Kim is still afraid of General Spears.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask.
