by James Harden
“I swear it’s the truth,” Kim says, with more than just a hint of desperation in her voice.
“I’m not buying it, Killer. I’m not buying a word you say.”
“What are you going to do?” Kim asks, sensing that whatever she says, whatever she does is pointless.
“We’re doing our due diligence,” the woman says. “We’re making sure we can trust you. But before we do that, let me introduce you to someone.”
The Death Squad member is dragged into the middle of the room.
“This is Captain Matt Frost,” the woman says. “He has refused to cooperate with us. He has refused to answer any of our questions. He has refused to behave.”
A man wearing a black hood with eyeholes cut out enters the room. He looks like an executioner.
He is an executioner.
This man, walks behind the soldier, the Death Squad member, Captain Matt Frost.
“Do you have any last words?” the woman asks. “Anything you want to say to clear your conscience?”
The soldier doesn’t lift his head. He simply says, “War is hell. It makes us mad.”
“This is a plague,” the woman replies. “This isn’t war.”
“Yes,” he whispers. “It is.”
The woman gives a nod, giving the signal.
The Executioner cuts the soldier’s throat and pushes him forward, face first into the floor, face first into his own blood.
Chapter 32
They drag the body of the soldier away. They drag him through his own blood, making a complete mess.
“Do you think we should be judged?” the woman asks. “After everything we have been through? Do you not think that this, the way we do things, is a fair and just trial? How are we supposed to act? How are we supposed to behave after everything that we’ve been through?”
“Trial?” Kim says.
“Do you know why we must torture you?”
“Torture? What? No. No, you don’t need to do that.”
“Yes. We do. We either torture you, or kill you. Which one would you prefer?”
“You don’t need to do this,” Kim repeats.
“I’m assuming you’ve already met Sarah,” the woman says. “Maybe you bumped into her. It doesn’t really matter. But did she tell you what we do to people we find, to people we don’t know?”
Kim shakes her head. “I…”
“Do not lie to me, Killer. Or I will start the torture right now, right here. I will break your nose more than it already is.”
Kim keeps her mouth shut. And the noise of my own heartbeat is so goddamn loud.
“People we don’t know,” the woman continues. “We don’t know if we can trust them. So to earn their trust, we must condition them, we must train them. Like dogs.”
The man wearing the black hood, the Executioner, returns. He is here to either kill us, or destroy our spirits.
To shatter our bones.
To break us.
And if they can’t put us back together…
“Yes,” I say. “We know Sarah. She’s been helping us move through the residential sector and through the commercial district.”
“Oh, she’s been helping you, has she?” the woman asks.
“Yes.”
“She’s always liked to play mind games.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that right, Sarah?”
Sarah nods her head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Sarah likes to act and move around on her own. She likes to think that she is not one of us. But she is. She hasn’t been here as long as some of us. But she survived the massacre. She knows not to trust anyone. She is one of us.”
Trust no one.
“Come here, Sarah.”
Her look is cold. Distant. She lets go of me and stands next to the woman.
Yes, Mother.
She is holding her gas mask. In her backpack are the other gas masks.
The rest of the air filters that she stole from me.
The EMP grenades that she stole from me.
The guns that she said we could use to rescue our friends with.
Lies.
Broken promises.
I can’t really blame her.
“Who do we trust, Sarah?” the woman asks.
Sarah’s head is lowered. She can’t look at us, at anyone.
“Sarah? Who do we trust?”
“No one,” she whispers.
“Speak up. Who do we trust?”
“No one. We trust no one.”
“We trusted the military,” the woman says. “We trusted the company. And we paid for it with our lives. Trust no one. You people may be innocent. You may be good. But to us, you are a threat. You are a threat because we don’t know you. We don’t know anything about you.”
“We’re not a threat,” I repeat.
“We don’t get too many people down here,” she continues, completely ignoring me. “But we do on occasion. And from meeting these people, I have learnt to never underestimate your fellow man. We are capable of so much good, so much evil. So much desperation. I don't believe the people, the survivors. The military. The company. I don’t believe they are evil. I believe they are desperate. And I think this is worse. Because desperation will make a sane person insane. It will make a good person evil. Desperation will turn a hungry person into a cannibal.”
Cannibal.
Are we about to be eaten?
“You say you are not a threat,” she continues. “You say you are good. But this is irrelevant. It’s irrelevant because you are desperate.”
The weird thing is, I’m starting to agree with her. Because she’s right. We are desperate. We are so goddamn desperate. We’ve been desperate from the beginning.
“Normally, we’d isolate you,” the woman says. “And if you cooperate, we reward you. If you resist, we punish you. But this is not a normal situation.” She points at Kim. “You say you are innocent people. But Killer was working with the General.” She points at Daniel and at Kenji. “Those two are soldiers. And Maria Marsh.” She shakes her head. “What a waste. So yes, you people are no ordinary survivors. And there is no way in hell you are innocent. You have blood on your hands.”
Maria marsh.
Kenji Yoshida.
An Evo Agent.
Kim.
She’s right. We are anything but normal.
We have blood on our hands.
We have so much goddamn blood on our hands.
“Who are you people?” she asks. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
I am about to answer her questions. I am about to say for the hundredth time that we are not a threat, that we are good people. Desperate or not, we are good.
But I don’t get the chance.
I don’t get the chance because she says, “It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter that Maria Marsh is here. The only thing that matters is your trust. And I’m not entirely sure we can ever gain your trust.”
We’re running out of options.
She is so close to sentencing us to death.
Any second now the Executioner will step behind us.
Slit out throats.
Bleed us out.
“There is a squad of Evo Agents,” I say. “They are working together with the Special Forces soldiers. They’re coming for you. They’re heavily armed.”
“Save your breath,” she says. “Save your strength. There is no one coming for us. There is no one coming for you.”
The woman nods to the man in the black hood and then she exits the room.
And now we are alone with the Executioner.
Chapter 33
Once again we are lambs to the slaughter. Once again we are prisoners on death row. And now they are going to torture us. Now they are going to kill us.
They will kill Kenji. And Daniel. And probably Kim.
This will destroy me. It will destroy Maria. It will destroy Jack.
They will shatter us and our bones like glass. They w
ill not be able to put us back together. And I’m starting to realize they were always going to kill us.
We can never go back.
We’re running out of options.
We’re running out of time.
There is no escape.
But why is Sarah still here?
Trust no one.
“Please, Sarah,” I say, not ready to give up. Not willing to give up. “We can get you out. You can get back to your sister.”
Was she lying about having a sister? Was she lying about the town?
Was she lying about the safe haven?
They built walls.
Was she lying?
No. She was telling the truth. Leaving her sister behind. The guilt. It is keeping her alive. She wants to get back. She needs to get back.
Her family, like my family, is her strength. It is the only thing keeping her alive.
I can see her thinking this over. I can see her mind working.
“Sarah,” I say. “We can get you out of here. There is a rescue coming.”
She lowers her head.
“Don’t listen to her,” the Executioner says. “You think you can ever leave this place? You think there is anyone alive up there? Don’t be stupid.”
“I need to get back,” Sarah whispers. “Eventually.”
“You survived by being smart,” he says. “Going above ground, listening to these people’s lies, believing these people’s lies, is not smart.”
“We’re not lying,” I say. “We’re not.”
“Who do you think is coming for you?” the Executioner asks. “Who do you think is going to rescue you? The military? The company? No one is coming back for you. There is no rescue. The military wants us dead. And the company wants us buried. And here we are.” He then turns to Sarah. “Your sister is dead. There’s nothing left for you up there.”
And this pushes Sarah over the edge.
“You don’t know that,” she whispers.
“Yes. I do. You know how I know?”
Sarah is shaking her head. She holds her broken wrist.
“Because everyone I ever knew is dead.”
Sarah takes a grenade out of her backpack. She removes the pin.
“What the hell are you doing?” the Executioner asks.
She throws the pin on the floor in front of the Executioner. She has the grenade in her hand, she makes a fist around it, keeping the lever secured so that it does not detonate.
He takes out his gun. A Beretta.
“Put the gun down,” Sarah orders.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m getting out of here. I’m going above ground. And they’re coming with me.”
“There’s nothing for you up there.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Sarah reaches into her backpack and pulls out another grenade. “You prepared to take that risk?”
I can’t tell if they are frag grenades or EMP grenades.
The Executioner puts the gun on the ground.
“Kick it over,” she says.
He kicks the gun over to Sarah. It skids over to her, and stops at her feet.
“Untie them,” she says. “You touch them, you hurt them, I drop these grenades, and you all go up. Either way, I’m getting out of here. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to hurt you at all. But I will if I have to.”
“Just take it easy,” he says. “You know I can’t let you leave. I can’t let these people leave. She’ll kill me.”
“She won’t. She’ll come after us. But she won’t kill you.”
“You don’t know. You’re never around. She’s starting to lose it.”
“Come with us,” Sarah says.
“Are you crazy? We’ve got a good thing going on here. We’ve got food and water. We’ve got shelter.”
“This place is a prison. You can’t live like this forever. And I can’t live here for another second. I left my sister all by herself. I need to get above ground. I need to get back to her. These people are my ticket out of here.”
The Executioner has his hands raised. He doesn’t know what to do.
“Move it,” Sarah says.
She puts one of the grenades back in her backpack and picks up the gun. She fires it into the wall behind the Executioner. The gunshot is unbelievably loud and I have no idea what Sarah is doing. I look over at the door and I expect people to come running in.
But a few seconds pass and nothing happens.
A whole minute passes and still nothing happens.
No one comes through the door. No one heard a thing.
“You see?” Sarah says. “We’re alone on this floor. She won’t find out.”
The Executioner finally unties us all.
Daniel quickly moves over to the door. He opens it and looks outside. “It’s clear.”
Kenji ties up the Executioner.
For a second I think about taking his ridiculous hood off his head. But I don’t.
“So what now?” he asks.
Sarah gags him. “Now, you stay here. Until they come back. It could be a day. It could be four. I’m sorry.”
The man lowers his head.
The torturer has become the tortured.
Sarah picks up the pin of the grenade. She turns to Kenji. “Do you know how to put this back in?”
Kenji takes the grenade. He carefully slides the pin back into the lever, securing it. It’s only then I realize that the grenade is an EMP grenade.
Once the grenade is secured, Kim grabs Sarah by the shoulders and slams her against the wall. “What the hell is your problem!?”
“I had no choice,” Sarah says, defending her actions.
“No choice but to sell us out? No choice but to betray us?”
“They found you. They knew you were coming. I had no choice!”
For a second I think Kim is going to kill Sarah. But she doesn’t.
Kenji and Maria are helping Jack walk.
Daniel is still over by the door.
And Maria says, “This is no time for fighting. We’re not even out of danger yet. We need to go before they come back.”
She is the voice of reason.
“And you need me to get to the Vehicle Access Point,” Sarah says. “I’m the only one who knows the way.”
“You expect us to trust you?” Kim asks. “After what you did?”
“You don’t have a choice. You either follow me. Or die.”
Sarah has a good point. An excellent point. We have no choice but to trust her. So that’s what we do. We trust her. Reluctantly.
We follow her out the door, out of the apartment turned torture chamber.
We follow her out of ‘C block’ and back into the subway tunnels.
We follow her across the bridge that spans the massive underground lake - the source of life for this massive facility. Sarah tells us that the woman who was torturing us had led a team of engineers to disable the explosive charges on the bridge. This team was able to disarm the explosives before the military detonated them as part of their containment protocol. Sarah tells us that even though the woman was changing into something dangerous, something evil and abhorrent, she was a brilliant leader of people. And even though she was falling into a dark place, she was the only reason those people had survived as long as they had.
We cross the bridge and follow Sarah back into another tunnel. We pass a fork in the tunnel and we can hear the sounds of the infected off in the distance. This lets us know that the infected are never far away. That we will always be hunted. That death is relentless.
We pass a train. It is abandoned and completely empty.
We walk in darkness for the better part of a day.
We follow Sarah all the way to the Western Vehicle Access Point.
And I start to relax. We’ve made it. We’re getting out.
The hatch to the outside world is wide open. Sunlight pours in, illuminating the massive han
gar, momentarily blinding us. When my eyes adjust, I stare at the blue sky. I am hypnotized by the sunshine. It is brighter than I remember. Brighter than I could ever imagine.
I feel its warmth and goose bumps form on my skin.
We are so close. I smell the fresh air, the dry desert air.
But then Daniel tells us to stop. He pushes me and Maria against the wall of the tunnel.
“What the hell?” I ask.
“Everyone down,” he whispers. “Quiet.”
“What is it?” Kenji asks.
“They’re here,” Daniel answers.
“So?” Kenji says. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s only two of them. I don’t see a rescue chopper. I don’t hear a rescue chopper.”
Daniel is looking dead ahead, into the Vehicle Access Point. But I can’t see a thing. There’s no one there.
“Do you see them?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, I see them. They’ve got their cloaking devices activated. I’m going in. Wait here. Stay back until I give the all clear. Stay hidden.”
He tells us to stay hidden. He says this quietly.
And once again I get the feeling that something is wrong.
No Escape but Death
Daniel moves out into the open. He enters the Vehicle Access Point, leaving the subway tunnel, crossing the threshold of the massive circular blast door.
A split second later, the Evo Agents deactivate their cloaking devices and come shimmering into view. There is only two of them. They are dressed in full NBC suits. And again, I can’t help but feel that they do not look like a rescue squad.
They look like heartless, soulless, killer robots.
We still can’t hear a rescue chopper.
Daniel raises his hands to let them know he is not a threat. “My name is Daniel Hudson, I’m with…”
One of the Evo Agents makes a hand signal, making a fist, and Daniel immediately stops speaking. He stops moving. His hands are still raised.
“Where is Doctor Hunter?” the Evo Agent asks. “Where is Doctor Kumar Singh?”
“What are you talking about?” Daniel says. “They were extracted days ago. They were collected by…”
“No. The recon team never returned. They never made it back to base.”
“Never returned?” Daniel asks. “What are you saying?”
