by James Harden
The headlights of the Humvee are blindingly bright.
Ben is standing next to the front passenger door.
“Do it big guy,” the leader says. “Or you get an arrow in your knee cap. Don’t care how big you are, don’t care how strong you are, an arrow in your leg will hurt.”
“Let me join your group,” Ben says. “You need me.”
The leader moves towards Ben. He laughs. “You have got to be joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Why the hell would I let you join us?”
They are now both standing next to the Humvee. Ben is calm. He is not afraid.
“Speak now,” the leader says. “Or die.”
And Ben says, “You should let me join you because I have a shotgun pointed at your gut.”
I knew we had a shotgun.
The leader looks down. He sees the shotgun, the handheld cannon. He smiles.
He laughs again.
“I like you,” he says.
“Ben?” I ask. “What the hell are you doing?”
“But if you shoot me,” the leader continues. “They shoot you. No one wins. Well, not you or me. And just exactly why do I need you? Why do we need you?”
“Because you’re not going to stay down here forever,” Ben says. “You will eventually go above ground. I’ve got local knowledge. I grew up working out here.”
The Death Squad leader thinks it over. After a while he says, “You’re an outlaw. You’re a stand over man. Or rather, you were an outlaw, back before the world ended, back in the days when there were laws. You’re a butcher. A killer. Always will be. Old world. New world. Makes no difference. Don’t think we didn’t read your file when you first showed up. Your police records. They were doing surveillance on you for years. Is it true that you once marched a man, a senior detective of the Victorian police force out into the desert, and made him dig his own grave with his bare hands?”
Ben nods his head slowly. “I’ve done a lot of things. And no one mourned for that man.”
The leader turns to his men. “What do you think boys?
No answer.
The only noise comes from Jack who is wincing in pain. He is taking deep, deep breaths.
“To be silent, is to agree,” the leader says. “Welcome aboard. But remember, you gotta earn your keep. There are no free rides in this world. Luckily, I know what you’re capable of. We all know. Especially after you went toe to toe with the General. You fight like a goddamn man possessed. Maybe you are possessed.”
The leader again turns to the other men. “You hear that? We just recruited an old school warrior to our ranks.”
The soldiers say nothing. Their faces remain emotionless.
“They’re cold at first,” the leader says. “But they’ll warm up to you. I know they will. You were born for this world.”
And I can’t believe it. What the hell is Ben doing? How can he just abandon us? “Ben! What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m doing what is necessary to survive,” he says. “Adapt or die.”
“I’m glad you agree with my worldview,” the leader says as he hands Ben a knife. “Now to show me and my men that you truly are prepared to join us, I need you to take this knife, and I need you to bleed these people out. I need you to butcher them.”
Chapter 13
We are kneeling in front of the Humvee. Our shadows are cast onto the walls of the subway tunnel and the wooden barricade. We are lined up. We are prisoners on death row. We are lambs to the slaughter.
Or pigs.
I remember something Ben had once said about bleeding out pigs and lambs and cattle. A slow bleed, a slow death was good for the meat.
When he had first said this it had given me chills.
“You said you weren’t going to kill us!” Parker says.
“I’m not killing you,” the leader replies. “Benjamin Wallace, the strong man, the stand over man. He’ll be the one killing you.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Ben says, showing us that he has not completely lost his mind. “They don’t need to die.”
“They do. Because I need your trust.” He turns to his men, waving his hand over them. “We need your trust.”
“You’ve taken their weapons. Their food. They’re done for.”
“And now you will experience what my men and I experienced when we were ordered into the residential sector of this facility. When we were ordered to kill all those innocent people. All those civilians and research scientists and engineers and programmers and maintenance crew. This changed me. And I know it changed my men. War is hell, right? Right? I never believed those words. I’ve been a professional soldier my entire adult life. And that’s the way I conducted myself on the battlefield. Like a pro. The killing and the fighting wasn’t personal. It was just work. But now… now I’ve killed innocents. I’ve slaughtered and massacred innocents. And now I know. I know that war is hell.” He points towards the residential sector, towards the wall of pallets. “In there, in the residential sector, in those warehouses, that is hell.”
And I think to myself, we can never go back to the way things were.
“But here’s the kicker,” the leader continues. “It stays with you. All the killing. All the innocent lives we took. It stays with you. And you carry it. You carry those lives, and the killing. You carry it wherever you go.”
The subway tunnel is completely silent.
I had never thought of the Death Squad as reluctant killers. I look over my shoulder and I scan the men. Their eyes are hollow. Their stares are distant.
Have they lost hope?
“I know you’ve killed before,” the leader says to Ben. “I know you’ve killed a lot of bad people. But tell me, how many innocent people have you killed?”
There is no answer from Ben. He has never killed an innocent person in his life.
“You need to do this so you can join us,” the leader says. “So you know what it’s like, so you can carry that weight, so you can carry that part of hell around with you. Just like the rest of us.”
Ben lowers his head, and for a second I get the feeling that he is actually thinking about killing us.
“Ben, you can’t do this to us,” I say, pleading. “You can’t…”
He looks at me and I can’t get a read on him. I have no idea what he is thinking. “Us? There is no us. Remember what I told you when we first met in the bank vault. Civilization has crumbled, and we’ve been sent back to the dark ages. Old Testament. Eye for an eye. I told you, if you wanted to live, then you better be ready to fight. You better be ready for war. Survival of the fittest, the strongest. And you guys are not fit. You are not strong.”
Only the strong survive...
I can’t figure it out. Ben is abandoning us. He is holding the knife. He is going to kill us.
Butcher us.
Bleed us out.
Leave us to rot
“Ben, don’t do it,” I say. “You can’t. I know you’re one of the good guys. I know you are.”
I know he is.
He saved us in the town of Hope. He has saved us so many times. He is good.
“Fight monsters long enough and you’ll become one,” he whispers. “I’ve been fighting monsters my whole life.”
“Hurry up,” the leader says. “We need to move.”
And then I hear a noise. A hissing noise. Like a snake. It grows louder and louder. And then fades into the distance.
The swarm is here.
I see Ben look off into the darkness. He knows.
Yet somehow the Death Squad appear oblivious.
Ben has the knife in his right hand. It is a hunting knife. It has a curved tip. A serrated edge. It is exactly like the one I tried to kill the man in the gas mask with.
Ben places the knife against the side of Daniel’s neck.
And Daniel closes his eyes.
“Don’t do it,” I say to Ben. “It’s not right.”
A shadow moves
along the walls of the tunnel. Something steps in front of the headlights of the Humvee.
No one sees it. No one hears it.
And now it is too late.
The soldiers all lower their rifles.
Even the leader is in shock. His jaw physically drops.
They have never seen anything like this before.
Not many people have.
Again, I risk looking over my shoulder, and standing there smiling this weird, creepy smile is the ghost of George Walters.
The ghost of the Warden.
He… it… is standing right next to Parker. The Warden has a weird look on his face. Like he is smiling and screaming at the same time.
And then…
Then...
I hear his voice.
He says, “I'm getting out of here. It is time to die.”
And then he screams. He screams a blood chilling, blood curdling scream.
There is confusion in the ranks. There is panic.
Daniel immediately springs into action. He dives under the Humvee and retrieves the belt of EMP grenades. He throws two of them at the ghost of George Walters. There is a bright flash and we all take cover. The nano-swarm dissolves into a cloud of black smoke and disappears. The lights on the Humvee flicker and dim. For a second I think they are going to go out, but they come back on. Brighter than ever.
Ben grabs the leader by the shoulders and pushes him towards the passenger side of the Humvee.
“What the hell was that?” the leader asks.
“Nano-swarm,” Ben answers. “Time to go.”
I look around for the swarm, but I can’t see it. I can’t hear it.
Ben pushes the leader into the Humvee. The leader and the rest of the Death Squad is still in shock. And I can’t believe it. The leader of the Death Squad, a man who has seen terrible things, done terrible things, is in shock.
He has never seen a ghost before.
Before Ben gets in the driver’s seat, he gives me a nod. A look of reassurance. He then drives forward into the unblocked tunnel. The other members of the Death Squad jump in.
But one of them doesn’t make it.
He is about to climb up and into the rear of the car, but something grabs his leg. Something that looks like black smoke. It drags him to the ground. It drags him back into the darkness. He tries holding on to something, anything. His fingers dig into the ground. He tries to grab a hold of the train tracks. But he can’t.
And as he is dragged by us, he is choking and gagging. A split second later he stops trying to grab on to the tracks and starts clawing at his own throat. He can’t scream. He can’t speak. He can’t breathe. The nano-swarm has him in a vice like grip.
Daniel is about to throw another EMP grenade, but I stop him. “No. Don’t. Let it go. Let it take him.”
This is a ruthless thing to do. A cold hearted, cold blooded thing to do. But it is also necessary. As long as the swarm is feeding on that soldier, it won’t be feeding on us. It won’t be looking for us. It won’t be hunting us. It won’t be killing us.
The swarm disappears back into the dark, back the way we had come. The Humvee and Ben and the Death Squad continue on in the opposite direction.
The Humvee eventually disappears. The noise of the engine fades, the light from the headlights fade.
And now we are alone.
In the dark.
And we are still lambs in a slaughterhouse.
We are still prisoners on death row.
Chapter 14
And I can’t help but feel we have just had another stay of execution, a last minute pardon.
“Well, that’s just great,” Jack says, grimacing in pain. “I can’t believe Ben just abandoned us.”
“He didn’t abandon us,” I say. “He saved our lives.”
“Did he?” Daniel asks. “He was just about to kill us. He was about to slit our throats and bleed us out.”
I am unconsciously touching my neck, my throat. The skin is so soft. So vulnerable.
“Yeah,” Parker says, “We got lucky. I never thought I’d be happy to see a nano-swarm. If it didn’t show up when it did, we’d be dead right now. Some friend you got there.”
“He stalled them,” I argue. “He was saving us…”
I think. I hope.
He saved us, didn’t he?
Ben had sworn vengeance against the military and the Death Squad. When we found him in the prison, he was about to embark on a one man revenge fantasy, a suicide mission. He was about to kill, or attempt to kill the remaining members of the Death Squad. This was because Ben blamed the military for killing his friends down here, for killing all the people he had come to care about. So the only thing I know for certain is that he did not abandon us. He did not leave us. He was not going to kill us.
Maybe he will march the Death Squad out into the desert.
Maybe he will make them dig their own graves with their bare hands.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
Maria gets to her feet. “But none of this would’ve happened if we had just…” she trails off.
She is about to say that this was all Parker and Scott’s fault.
We should’ve kept driving.
Why did we stop?
Why did you try and take over?
Why didn’t you trust us?
But she doesn’t say this. She doesn’t want to fight, she doesn’t want to argue, because we don’t have time.
We need to get the hell out of here.
Parker kneels over Scott and tends to his hand. He still has a few medical supplies. Antiseptic cream. Bandages. The bare basics. He wraps the wounded hand up. Scott’s eyes are closed. He is trying to block out the pain.
Maria and Kim have helped Jack move over to the wall of the tunnel. They sit him down. He pulls the leg of his jeans up.
Daniel quickly bandages Jack’s leg. “Might need stitches,” he says. “But we can worry about that later.”
Apart from the blood, the wound didn’t look too bad. And since the Death Squad removed the arrow, you wouldn’t even have known he had been shot.
“We need to get out of here,” Kenji says. “The swarm will be back. The infected are coming. We need to go.”
Kenji sounds weird, like he is speaking in a robotic monotone. I think he is still in shock. I think he is still trying to figure out what role his father’s company has played in all of this. But he is right. We need to go and we need to go right now. Kenji is dealing with his shock the only way he knows how. By trusting his survival training and his natural abilities, his natural instincts.
“And don’t forget about the smoke,” Maria adds.
The smoke is getting thicker and thicker. If we stay here any longer we won’t be able to breathe.
“So which way?” Kenji asks.
“The only way we can go,” Daniel says. “We follow the Death Squad.”
“You want to follow them?” Maria says. “They’ll kill us!”
Daniel nods. “It’s the only way. We’ll have to stay hidden.” He points to the barricade. “And besides, we can’t go in there.”
“This should never have happened,” I say. “We should’ve moved on. As soon as we knew that tunnel was clear. We should’ve gone.”
I look at Parker. I look at Scott hunched over in pain. Maria held her tongue before. But I am in no mood to hold my tongue.
“This is your fault,” I say. “You guys are supposed to be the best. You’re supposed to be the elite. What were you thinking?”
“We were trying to take control of the situation,” Parker says. “We were trying…”
“You almost got us killed!”
Parker knows it. Scott knows it. The fight is gone from them. They no longer want control. They no longer want command.
Parker looks over to Daniel. Daniel is still cleaning the blood from Jack’s wound. I wonder how I would be reacting, how angry would I be if that arrow had gone through his heart, his neck. I wonder what I would do if Jack
had been killed.
“We need to re-group,” Kenji says, coming back to life, completely pushing all thoughts of his father and his father’s company out of his head.
I guess there’s no point in thinking about something he can’t control. No point in thinking about something that has no bearing on whether or not we get out of here alive. Like I’ve said before, life and death situations tend to simplify matters for Kenji.
Or maybe it was just death. The fear of death.
“What weapons do we have?” Kenji asks.
Daniel holds up the belt of EMP grenades. “We’ve got seven pulse grenades left.”
“Any guns?” Parker asks.
Daniel shakes his head. “They took them all. All our ammo. Everything.”
“We’re screwed,” Parker says, completely not helping.
Kenji removes the sidearm from the waist of his pants. “We’re not completely screwed. We’ve still got this.”
“That’s not enough,” Parker says. “You know it’s not enough.”
“It’s better than nothing,” I say.
“No, it’s not. We’re better off saving those bullets for our own heads. We’ve got no food. No water. And no way out.”
“Well that’s what will do,” Kim says, stepping in. “We’ll save those bullets for our own heads. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll shoot you first. And then you can shoot me.”
“Guys, calm down,” Maria says. “We don’t need guns to get out of here. We need to be quiet. We need to be invisible. A gunshot is like ringing the dinner bell for the infected. We need to get to the other Vehicle Access Point quickly and quietly. A firefight with the infected is no good.”
“How far is it?” I ask Daniel.
“I’m not sure,” he answers. “A long way. These tunnels, this whole place is huge. If I had to guess, I’d say a day’s walk, maybe half a day.” He then looks over at Jack. “Can you walk?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jack says. “I’m fine. I can make it.”
I see the strain on Jack’s face. The blood on his leg. He is saying, ‘don’t worry about me’. But we should worry. He’s not going to be able to walk on his own. This will slow us down considerably.
“OK,” Kenji says. “It will take at least a day. We can do this. We stick together. We stay alert. Together we can make it.”
