A World on Fire: Secret Apocalypse Book 6 (Secret Apocalypse Series)

by James Harden

  “I don’t think so,” Daniel says.

  “Taking out my guys?” Parker asks. “No sound? No blood? No goddamn trace whatsoever.”

  “It’s a swarm,” I whisper to myself, under my breath.

  It’s the only thing on earth capable of doing this.

  “Whatever it is, we have to act,” Kenji says. “We have to do something. What’s the plan here?”

  “We have to close that blast door,” Kim says. “That’ll keep out the infected and the Death Squad. And it has to be the Death Squad, right? They’ve come back, for me. For Maria. So they can use as bargaining chips.”

  Parker shakes his head. “It’s not the Death Squad. There’s no way those bastards are sneaking up on us. And there’s no way we can close that blast door. The manual override is broken. The whole thing is rusted and frozen.”

  “So if we can’t close the door,” Kim says. “Then we have to get out of here. I don’t wanna sit around and wait for a rescue that might not be coming, while we disappear one by one.”

  “I agree with Kim,” Jack adds.

  “Yeah,” I say. “We have to take our chances above ground. Because the thing that is taking your men, hunting your men, it’s a nano-swarm. And if we stay down here any longer, we’re all dead.”

  Daniel shakes his head. “No, we’re not taking that risk. We don’t have the equipment. Going outside, exposing yourselves to nuclear fallout means death for anyone who’s not wearing an NBC suit. And I’m not leaving you guys behind. And I’m not taking you to the surface to your deaths.”

  “Staying down here is no better,” I fire back. “Staying down here is a definite death sentence. And besides, the man in the gas mask, he said there would be no fallout. He said the nukes were detonated in the upper atmosphere.”

  “Do you believe him?” Daniel asks. “Are you prepared to risk your life and your friend’s life on something that he said?”

  He is a liar.

  Don’t believe a word he says.

  Wise words from a dead man, from a man, a soldier who had found out the truth and paid the ultimate price for it.

  “If we can’t get the eastern door closed,” Daniel says. “If the rescue team doesn’t come back, we’ll have to go deeper into the Fortress. We head into the western tunnel. We take our chances. It’s the only way.”

  “No,” I say. “No goddamn way. I’m not going back. We need to get to the surface.”

  We keep arguing about what to do and where to go.

  This doesn’t help us answer the question of the missing Evo Agents.

  Four of Daniel’s men are missing.

  Four men have disappeared into thin air.

  No sign of them.

  No blood.

  Nothing.

  No trace at all.

  How many are left? Two? Was someone even watching the western tunnel?

  “What if they’ve just left us?” Maria asks. “Maybe your men got scared and they ran off.”

  “No, they wouldn’t do that,” Daniel answers. “They wouldn’t just abandon us. The mission. The company.”

  “Who is the company?” I ask.

  Daniel shakes his head. “Don’t. Not now.”

  “What? You can’t be serious?”

  Ben appears from the shadows. He is carrying two jerry cans. I’m not sure what was in them. Probably fuel. Maybe oil. He sets them down. “We need to close the blast doors. If we can’t close the blast doors then we need to make sure that Humvee is fuelled and ready to go.” He points over to a Humvee with a satellite dish on its roof. “It’s the only one that still works. It’s the only one that is insulated against EMP.”

  “What the hell are we going to do with a Humvee?” Daniel asks. “Where are we going to go? The vehicle platform isn’t working either. Nothing works! The EMP from the nuclear warheads took out all the electronics in this room.”

  “If we get attacked by a horde of infected,” Ben says. “While those doors are open, we’ll have no choice but to go. We take that Humvee and go back into the subway tunnels, back into the Fortress. We find another hiding place. And then we get to the next Vehicle Access Point.”

  “That’s a suicide mission,” I say. “I’m not going back… I won’t.”

  “Beats sitting here,” Ben says. “While we get picked off one by one.”

  Ben had a point. But I really did not want to go back in there, back into the Fortress, back into the tunnels, back into hell.

  “We should really close these doors,” Kenji says.

  “Don’t you think we’ve tried already?” Parker explains. “They won’t budge.”

  “Maybe we need to oil the gears up,” Ben offers.

  “Pouring oil on the gears might not even get them moving again. It looks like the manual system hasn’t been used in years. Probably longer.”

  I was about to say we have to try. We have to try something. We have to try everything. Because the moment we stop trying, the moment we stop moving, the moment we become complacent, or put our trust in a rescue, in people who we didn’t know, who may or may not even be coming back for us, would be the moment we sign our own death warrant.

  But the argument about the blast door and how to properly grease the gears is short lived. One of the Evo Agents stationed at the eastern blast door, lights up a flare.

  A bright red flare.

  “Stop right there!” He says loudly, practically shouting. “Identify yourself!”

  “Who is he talking to?” I ask.

  Daniel runs over. Kenji follows. And not wanting to be left behind, we all follow. We need to see. We need to see whoever or whatever the hell is taking us and stealing us away into the dark, one by one.

  I need to see. Even though I think I have a pretty good idea of what it is.

  The Evo Agent throws the red flare into the subway tunnel.

  The light begins to fade.

  We are standing at the threshold of the eastern subway tunnel.

  The Evo Agents have their rifles raised and ready. They are pointed, aiming into the tunnel, into the dark.

  We are under attack. We are exposed. We are so vulnerable.

  “What is it, Scott?” Daniel asks. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Scott doesn’t answer Daniel. So we follow his gaze. We follow the barrel of his rifle. And standing about fifty feet away is a man. He is wearing a white, long sleeve shirt.

  “Identify yourself, or we will open fire,” Scott says.

  The man walks forward. Like a ghost emerging from the darkness.

  He seems to float over the train tracks.

  He is coming closer.

  He is wearing a white, long sleeve shirt.

  A black tie.

  Why is he wearing a tie?

  He comes closer.

  And now I can see.

  Now I can see that it is George Walters. The Prison Administrator.

  The Warden is back.

  Chapter 6

  No.

  It can’t be. He died. I watched him die.

  I watched him die in the most horrific and unimaginable way.

  He was eaten alive.

  He was eaten from the inside by a nano-swarm.

  “We will open fire!” Scott shouts at the Warden.

  He’s about fifty feet away. Maybe less. It’s hard to tell. He is coming closer.

  And it is George Walters. It is the Warden. I swear it is.

  But it can’t be.

  “Fire a warning shot,” Daniel says.

  “What about the noise?” Kenji asks.

  Scott lines the warden up in his sights.

  But Kenji is right, the noise will be bad. The deafening noise of a gunshot will attract the attention of the infected. It will bring them right to us.

  I can’t let that happen.

  And I need to be sure.

  I grab Kenji’s gun, the handgun, I grab it for security, to be used in a case of emergency. To be used only if I have no other choice.

 
I snatch the gun out of Kenji’s hand and run into the tunnel.

  Kenji tries to stop me but he is too slow. “Rebecca! No!”

  I am too quick. Too determined.

  “Get back here!” Daniel orders.

  But I am not listening to Kenji. And I am not listening to Daniel. I don’t care if he’s in charge. I don’t care if I’m undermining his authority in front of his men.

  I need to be sure.

  The Warden stops his advance. He actually appears to move back, deeper into the tunnel, closer to the curved walls, like he’s keeping his distance. Like he is surprised and taken off guard by my sudden movement.

  I remind myself that he is a snake. A reptile.

  I remind myself to keep a safe distance.

  He tried to kill us.

  He ordered us onto our knees.

  He tried to execute us.

  I walk forward with the gun raised and armed. I tell myself not to fire unless absolutely necessary.

  I tell myself the gun is a bluff. It is for appearances only.

  “George?” I say. “Is that you?”

  No response.

  George continues to keep his distance. He is making no sound. He appears to be floating above the train tracks, above the ground. It is hard to see clearly in the dark, but it actually looks like his feet aren’t touching the tracks or the ground at all.

  Maybe he really is a ghost.

  “George?”

  A flash of silver. His face distorts, his whole body distorts and loses shape, ever so briefly. And then he appears more solid. Slightly bigger. His shirt is a brighter shade of white.

  I say his name but there is no answer.

  He floats towards me.

  And I am exhausted. I am dehydrated. I am starving. I am malnourished.

  I’ve been doped up on sedatives and painkillers.

  And this is why it has taken me so long to figure this out.

  This is not George.

  And it is not his ghost.

  Although I guess maybe it kind of is his ghost.

  This is the nano-swarm that ate George.

  It’s been running loose throughout the Fortress.

  And now it has found us.

  And now it is going to hunt us down and kill us.

  Hunt. Kill.

  Search. Destroy.

  This is its only programming.

  This is all it does. This is all it has been doing. It’s already taken four Evo Agents. Super soldiers. It took them, dragged them off to their deaths.

  No sound. No blood.

  No trace.

  I start to back up.

  It continues to advance.

  “It’s a swarm!” I yell back at the others.

  I turn and run.

  “It’s a nano-swarm!” I repeat.

  Daniel doesn’t waste any more time. He retrieves an EMP grenade. He pulls the pin and throws it into the tunnel. And then he throws another one.

  The two grenades fly over my head. I hear them bounce along the train tracks.

  There is a bright flash and the hiss of the nano-swarm as it moves through the air.

  Kenji and Jack and the others are waving me forward.

  I feel like the swarm is right behind me. I feel like it is about to trip my legs and drag me off into the dark.

  I risk a look over my shoulder. But all I see is darkness.

  The Ghost of George Walters, the Prison Administrator, the Warden, is nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 7

  “What the hell was that?” Maria asked. “Was that a person?”

  “No,” I say, struggling to breathe, struggling to think, to stop shaking. “It was a nano-swarm. It was using a disguise, a camouflage technique. It must’ve…”

  Kenji holds his hand up, cutting me off, demanding silence. I listen for the hissing noise of the swarm.

  But there is nothing.

  No sound.

  No movement.

  Nothing but darkness.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  No response from Kenji.

  And then a howl, a moan, a scream from the dark. From the abyss that is this subway tunnel. I can’t see them yet, and the noises are distant, faded. They’re still a long way off. Maybe a few miles. But it won’t take long for them to get here.

  We have to go.

  We have to go right now.

  And we have to get this blast door closed.

  Daniel springs into action. “Scott. Parker. Guard the tunnel. Don’t fire unless you absolutely need to. Fall back on my command.”

  “Yes, sir,” the two Evo Agents say in unison.

  Scott and Parker take up defensive positions, just inside the tunnel, on the other side of the blast door, their silenced rifles raised and ready. And Daniel hands everyone an EMP grenade just in case the nano-swarm comes back. Maria does not look confident holding one. I wonder if she would be able to pull the pin and throw it accurately if she had to.

  “We have to close the door,” I say. “If we don’t get this door closed, we’ll be overrun. There’s no telling how many infected are coming for us.”

  It could be one or two.

  It could be an entire horde.

  An army.

  An army of undead infected psychopaths.

  Daniel is shaking his head. He looks at the blast door. And then he looks over at the western tunnel. “It’s not going to work. The door is frozen.”

  “We have to try,” Maria says. “That nano-swarm could come back at any time.”

  “We have tried. It won’t budge.”

  “So what now?” Jack asks. “If we can’t get the door closed, we can’t stay here. And we can’t fight back. We don’t know how many infected there are in the tunnels. We don’t know if we have enough ammo to deal with this.”

  “Jack is right,” Kim says. “We don’t have time to try. We need to go. Right now, we can’t waste time. We have to get as far away from this hangar as possible. We have to put distance between us and the infected.”

  As all hell breaks loose Ben is still steadily working away. He drops off two more jerry cans of oil, or fuel, or both, in the middle of the hangar. He then makes his way over to the blast door, to the manual override.

  The manual override system is basically just a large crank handle. I’m guessing the crank would turn a number of gears, which would then make the door open and close. But judging by the size of the door, it’s immense weight, I just don’t see how anyone could move that thing.

  Not even Ben.

  “Will this really work?” Kim asks.

  Ben has already moved over to the crank handle. “Don’t know,” Ben says.

  He wipes his greased up hands on his shirt and on his pants. He grabs the handle and tries to move it.

  The door starts moving. Slowly. Slightly. An inch. Maybe less.

  My jaw drops. Ben’s physical strength will never cease to amaze me.

  Kenji and Jack step into help Ben. But the handle is not big enough for three people. Ben pushes them away.

  He tries again, turning the handle slowly. The door moves another inch.

  But eventually he can’t budge the handle. Even with all of his strength. He can’t budge it. These blast doors, this whole facility is state of the art. These doors are automated. So I’m guessing the manual override has probably never been used. It probably never needed to be used. Why would it? There was never any danger, never any need to contain any threats whatsoever. Of course this all changed when the man in the gas mask arrived.

  Ben kicks the handle repeatedly.

  But he is wasting energy.

  “Stop,” I say. “There’s no point. It’s never going to work.”

  “Contact!” Parker shouts.

  Suddenly a gun shot that sounded like a weird thump, or clap, erupts inside the hangar and echoes off into the tunnel. I quickly realize this is the sound of a rifle that has a silencer attached to the barrel.

  It sounds more like a nail gun than a regula
r gun.

  Parker fires another shot.

  The infected have arrived. And by the sounds of it, there’s a lot more than just one or two.

  We look back into the dark tunnel. And sure enough, there they are, stumbling out of the darkness. They had been lurking in the subway tunnels. Shuffling aimlessly along. But now they have fresh hosts on offer. Now they are coming for us. They are chasing. Like we knew they would.

  “Hold this room at all costs,” Daniel tells his men. “Guard this doorway with your life.”

  “We have to fall back,” Kenji says to Daniel. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know. But first, we need to slow them down.”

  “How?” Kim asks. “We’re unarmed. We are useless to you right now.”

  “Rebecca, you were right,” Daniel says. “We need to move the broken down Humvees into the opening of the blast door. We need to create a bottleneck. It won’t stop them completely, but it will slow them down. Move all of them, except for the one with the EMP dish on its roof. We’ll need that one as our getaway car.”

  We run over to the Humvees. They are giant vehicles. It will take all of us working in unison, pushing together, to move just one.

  “Remove the handbrake,” Kenji says to me.

  I jump into the driver’s seat and make sure the car is in neutral. I then make sure the handbrake is off. I jump down and start pushing. And once we get the Humvee moving, inertia takes over. It’s actually not that hard.

  We decide to split up.

  Kenji and Jack and Kim work together. Ben and Maria and I get another one. Although in our group, Ben does most of the work. Maria ends up in the driver’s seat to steer the car into the right position.

  Ben doesn’t even really need my help.

  We push about six broken down Humvees into the threshold of the tunnel. We know it won’t stop them, but it will force them to climb over the top of the cars. It might just slow them down. There were a few small gaps here and there. Very small. A person could fit through. They could turn sideways, squeeze through. It would be painful. But the infected don't feel pain. Hopefully it would create a bottle neck. Hopefully it will buy us some time to get away.

  A few seconds.

  It could mean the difference between life and death.

  I think we all knew it was hopeless. I think we all knew this was a pathetic attempt at stopping the infected. No one wanted to say it out loud though.