by James Harden
“So we’re going down that tunnel?” Maria asks. “The same tunnel those soldiers disappeared into?”
“We have to,” Kenji says. “It’s the only way.”
“But they just tried to kill us. They were going to slit our throats and bleed us out. And you want to go in there? With them? I’d rather take my chances with the infected.”
Maria has a point. What happens if we catch up to them? What happens if we accidentally bump into them?
Nothing good will happen, that’s for damn sure.
“I know it’s a risk,” Kenji says. “That’s why we have to stay alert. We can’t go back the way we came. And we can’t go through the residential sector.”
“Why not?” Maria asks.
“Because it’s completely overrun with the infected. And it’s contaminated with the airborne strain. We can’t go through there. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m with Maria,” Kim says. “I’d rather take my chances with the infected. You heard what the Death Squad said, they’re done with bargaining and negotiation. The only reason they let us live last time was because they thought they could use Doctor Hunter and myself as bargaining chips. They thought we were their tickets out of this hell hole. Now they know that trick won’t work. They’re not messing around anymore. They’re not taking prisoners.”
“If it was just the infected, I might agree with you,” Daniel says.
“Huh?”
“The residential sector,” he continues. “It’s a huge area. It’s practically the size of a small town. So if it was just overrun with the infected, I would agree with you. We might be able to move through it undetected. But it’s not just the infected. The airborne strain, we’re not prepared for that. We don’t have any gas masks. We have no protective clothing whatsoever.”
Maria points to the map that Ben had drawn. “Ben seemed to think we could move through it.”
“Ben’s not here anymore,” Daniel answers. “He left us. We would need him to guide us through. Going in there is a death sentence.”
We are arguing and talking in circles. We are getting nowhere.
Suddenly, a screaming moaning howl from the darkness echoes through the tunnel. The infected are close and getting closer.
“We have to go,” I say.
More smoke fills the tunnel.
We start to choke. We start to cough.
And that settles it. We will follow the Death Squad. Because we have no other choice.
I hope they find a hiding place somewhere far away from here.
Maria and Kim help Jack to his feet.
Kenji checks the ammo clip in the gun one more time. “Everyone ready?” he asks.
But before we can answer, the infected begin stumbling out of the dark, out of the one and only clear tunnel.
The clear path is no longer clear.
It is no longer an option.
Everybody freezes.
Kenji raises the gun.
“No,” Daniel whispers. “Don’t shoot.”
If he shoots, he rings the dinner bell.
We are dead.
If he doesn’t shoot.
We are dead.
I have no idea what to do. We are trapped.
Kenji lowers the gun and tucks it back into the waist of his pants.
The infected continue to stumble and shuffle towards us
They lean forward.
They pick up speed.
Any second now they will start sprinting towards us.
“This way,” Kenji says. “Through the barricade.”
“But you said…” I cut myself off. It doesn’t matter what he said.
We have to go.
And this is the only way.
We have to go through the barricade. We have to go into the residential sector.
Chapter 15
“Let’s go!” Kenji says. “Move it!”
“Are you serious?” Parker says.
Kenji is standing at the entrance to the built in pathway. He is waving us forward. “Through here.”
“But that leads to the residential area,” Maria says, hesitating.
And the airborne strain. That way lies death.
“We have no choice,” Kenji says, pointing to the barricade. “The leader said this thing was booby trapped. We’re going to have to try and bring the wall down on top of the infected so they can’t get through.”
“And then what?” Kim says. “The residential sector is contaminated. It’s overrun.”
“We have no choice,” Kenji repeats. “We have to do this. We have to block them off. We won’t be able to outrun them. Jack won’t be able to outrun them.”
“He’s right,” I say.
And there’s no way I was going to sacrifice Jack to a horde of infected. We’ll take our chances in the residential sector. We’ll take our chances with the airborne strain of the Oz virus.
We quickly make our way through the pathway built into the wall of pallets. We move in single file, we move hunched over. Kenji leads the way. Daniel is right behind him. Both Kim and Maria are helping Jack walk, acting as his crutches. Parker is at the rear. He is helping Scott move. He is talking to him, telling him he can do it. That we can make it. Just a little further.
Scott is clutching his shattered hand. Blood drips to the ground. He doesn’t respond in any way to Parker’s words of encouragement. But to his credit, he keeps moving forward. He keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
The wall of pallets is bigger than we thought. And the path is almost like a maze. The narrow passageway zig-zags back and forth. And it’s slow going because it’s booby trapped. Every twist, every turn has a trip wire running across the path.
The wire is connected to the pin of a frag grenade.
So Kenji has to stop, kneel down. He cuts the wire with his knife. He collects the grenade.
But cutting through each trip wire is taking a long time.
“What’s taking so long?” Kim asks over my shoulder.
“I have to be careful,” Kenji answers.
“What kind of wire is that?” I ask.
“It’s not wire. It’s fishing line. And the reason it’s taking so long is because the knife I’m using is as blunt as a butter knife.”
It’s a flick knife. A pocket knife. Similar to the one that Kenji gave me all those weeks ago.
This knife has a sharp tip. Because it is only supposed to be used as a last resort.
There is no point in cutting an infected person.
You have to stab it in the head, through the skull.
This is the only knife we have left.
We continue to make our way slowly through the maze of wooden pallets, the makeshift fortification.
It is indeed bigger than it looks.
At each turn, there is a trip wire. Another grenade.
At each turn, we stop. We wait.
The infected gain on us.
They are getting closer and closer. They are getting louder. They are getting more frenetic.
They are getting stronger and faster. They know their prey is close.
Kenji slowly, slowly cuts through the fishing line. He does this gently and carefully. If he cuts too hard, he’ll cause the fishing line to pull the pin out of the grenade.
If that happens we’re dead.
We’ll be blown to bits.
Or buried alive.
And then eaten alive.
What’s a worse way to go?
How would I rather die?
Kenji peers around the corner of the pathway. “Looks like this is the last one,” he says.
He cuts through the fishing line and picks up the grenade. The grenades have been stuck to the wooden pallets with duct tape. He peels back the tape and he makes sure the pin is secure.
“How many grenades do we have now?” Daniel asks.
“Six.”
“That’s not enough to kill them all,” I say.
“We’re not going to kill them,” Kenji a
nswers. “We detonate a few grenades. We blow this structure up. We bring it down on top of them.”
“Will that work?” I ask. “Will it stop them?”
“Don’t know. But there’s only one way to find out.”
Kenji hands two grenades to Parker. And two grenades to Daniel.
“Run,” Kenji tells us. “Move!”
We don’t need to be told twice.
Daniel and Parker throw their grenades back into the pathway at the same time. Kenji picks up Jack like a fireman. We continue running.
“Move against the wall!” Kenji shouts.
We press ourselves against the curved wall of the tunnel and take cover. I once again curl myself up into a ball. And the grenades detonate in a thunderous explosion. The concrete walls of the tunnel amplify the noise. And for what feels like a lifetime, I am completely deaf.
I hear a high pitched ringing.
Nothing else.
Daniel grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me along. It takes me a few seconds to realize that everyone is back on their feet. Everyone is running.
As I look back at the remains of the barricade, of what is now essentially a huge pile of fire wood, I see bits and pieces moving.
This means that the infected survived the explosions.
It means they are buried.
It means they are still coming for us. It means they’re gonna break through and climb over.
Not right away, but eventually.
So we continue running. We run for at least another mile or two.
Daniel finds a doorway, a maintenance access point.
He tries the handle but it won’t open. He kicks the door. He punches the door.
I consider bashing my skull into the door, like the infected do.
But I don’t get the chance.
We here the deadlock click. The handle turns slowly.
The door swings open.
And standing there is a girl.
She is my height. Similar build. Similar age.
She has a familiar and exhausted and terrified and determined look in her eyes.
In her hand is a gas mask.
She looks at me, at everyone. She looks at the Evo Agents. At Parker and Scott.
She waves us forward.
She says her name is Sarah.
Sarah…
She is an angel.
“This way,” she says. “Quickly. Don’t make a sound.”
Chapter 16
We are walking through the maintenance passageway. We are walking in silence.
Sarah is leading the way. Kim and Maria are still helping Jack walk, still acting as human crutches. Scott is still hunched over as he walks, holding his hand to his chest. Daniel and Kenji and Parker are bringing up the rear, making sure the infected aren’t going to barge into this walkway.
Kenji still has a hold of the sidearm, the Beretta. He is holding it with both hands. He keeps looking over his shoulder.
Neither Daniel nor Parker have tried to take it off him.
I wonder how many bullets we have.
Ten?
Twelve?
However many it is, it’s not enough. Even if the gun could somehow magically hold a hundred bullets, a thousand bullets, it would not be enough. If the infected manage to smash their way in here right now, we would have no option but to turn and run blindly as fast as we can. We would have no choice but to trust this girl, Sarah, with our lives.
And I am dying to ask her a million questions.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
Where are we going?
Are you alone?
How the hell have you survived?
But I don’t dare open my mouth. She told us to be quiet. And judging by the way she is walking and creeping along, I get the impression that we aren’t completely out of danger yet.
We come to another maintenance access door. She slows down, coming to a stop. She presses her ear up against the door and listens for any noises, any sign of the infected.
Maria is less concerned with being quiet, less concerned about what might be on the other side of the door. Probably because she is still suffering from the effects of the sedatives, probably because Jack has been shot in the leg with an arrow. She’s not thinking straight.
“So who are you?” Maria asks. “What are you doing down here? And where exactly are we?”
Sarah turns around, giving Maria a look. A cold, hard look.
It is a look that says, shut the hell up.
It is a look similar to the one that Ben gave Parker when he asked for the EMP grenade back.
These maintenance passageways follow the subway tunnels. So it is very possible that just on the other side of the wall, to our right, was a dark tunnel full of infected people. We pass several more doorways. More access points into the subway tunnel.
We eventually come to a door labelled, ‘Supply Room’.
The lock and the handle are broken. It looks like the door has been jammed open. Probably with a crowbar. She opens the door and walks inside without saying a word. Again we follow. Once we’re inside, she pushes a large shelf up against the door, barricading it closed.
The room is small.
There are shelves built into the walls.
I guess this room was a janitor’s closet. I see a lot of cleaning supplies.
A mop.
A bucket.
Apart from the cleaning supplies and various basic tools, it looks like Sarah has used this closet as a secret storage room. A couple of the shelves are full of food. Canned food. Packets of chips. Energy bars. MRE’s. Bottled water.
She grabs a bottle of water and takes a sip. She then throws it over to me. “Drink. All of you. Thirst will kill you quicker than anything.”
She says this more as a reminder to herself.
We all take a drink. This amounts to a few mouthfuls each. But it’s better than nothing.
She doesn’t offer us any food. Or any more water. Even though technically, we could just take what we wanted. We could overpower her. We could kill her. She knows this as well. But she is not afraid of us. Her hand rests on a large knife tucked into her belt. She is strong. She is tough. She has to be. To have survived this long.
Anyone who has survived this long…
The knife tucked into her belt is a hunting knife, a military issued hunting knife. I know where she got this from. And I know why she is not afraid of us.
Maria and Kim sit Jack down against the shelves on the far wall. His face is white. His jeans, his lower leg is covered in blood. Scott is still standing. He is upright, breathing deeply. He is holding his shattered hand close to his chest, his heart. Sweat is pouring off his face. He is trying his best to keep it together, to put on a brave face. But he is failing.
The rest of us are tired and exhausted and filthy. We are terrified.
We must look so pathetic.
“Who are you?” Kenji asks the girl.
She holds her index finger up to her lips. “No talking from the guys unless you whisper. Deeper voices travel. Through walls. Through doors.”
She speaks quietly. Very quietly. But it’s different to whispering. I can’t explain it. We all struggle to hear her, so we move in closer.
She looks at Kenji. At Daniel. “Have they gone?” she asks.
Kenji is not following. “Who?” he asks, lowering his voice.
“The soldiers. The Death Squad.”
“Yeah. They’re gone. For the moment.”
At least we think they’re gone. There’s really no way to tell. They could be regrouping right now. Circling back. Coming for the rest of us. It seems unlikely. Even though they just tried to kill us, I could sense a change. They were no longer interested in us. They just wanted to hide. They wanted to wait. Survive.
Just like the rest of us.
The only reason the leader ordered Ben to kill us, to bleed us out, was so he could figure out whether or not he could trust Ben. And as cold blooded
and horrific as that may seem, I can totally understand that reasoning. Trust is a dangerous thing in this new world.
A deadly thing.
Kim takes over the questioning. “So who are you?”
“My name is Sarah.”
“I’m Kim, this is my brother Jack. And this is…”
Sarah holds her hand up, cutting Kim off. “Don’t. Not yet.”
“What are you doing down here?” I ask. “How have you survived? How have you survived… everything that has happened?”
Everything.
The outbreak. The Death Squad. The airborne strain.
“I was looking for someone,” she answers. “Ended up here. Like a lot of people did. In the Fortress. I got lucky. When the infection started spreading, when the Death Squad started killing, I stayed quiet. I hid. I stole.”
“Are you the only one?” I ask. “Are you alone?”
“I’m alone. But there are others. I’m not sure where they are. I haven’t seen them in weeks. They could be dead. They could’ve died of thirst. They could be infected. They could’ve shot each other.”
She then lists off a variety of ways the last remaining survivors could’ve died.
Executed by the Death Squad.
Starvation.
Insanity.
“There was a small group of people,” she continues. “They did the same as me. They hid. They kept quiet. I ran into them early on. Thought I could maybe join up with them. Safety in numbers, you know?” She shakes her head. “But they had turned…” she pauses, trying to think of the right word. “They had turned wild. I’m better off on my own. Being alone means less noise. Being alone makes it easier to be invisible. To disappear.”
She does a quick head count. Scanning us, sizing us up.
Me.
Maria.
Jack.
Kim.
Kenji.
Daniel.
Scott.
Parker.
We are eight people.
Two of which are covered in blood.
“This group is too big,” she says. “They will find you in no time.”
She emphasizes the word ‘they’. Does she mean the infected? Or someone else?
Daniel orders Scott to sit down so he can tend to the wounded hand.
