by James Harden
I was just about to storm off. Maybe I should’ve checked his pulse. But then he coughed so I knew he was alive. At least for the time being.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Stick to the shadows,” he whispered. “When you strike; strike hard. Strike fast. You will only get one chance.”
Chapter 18
I ran up to the rear of the train, hunched over, keeping low. Ben was right. The train appeared to be a ‘bullet’ train. The front carriage and the rear carriage both had an aerodynamic and futuristic design. It gave the impression that it was built for speed. The two rear carriages were boarded up. The windows were spray painted black. They were completely dark.
I moved towards the front. The lights inside the carriages were so bright, they hurt my eyes. The passenger doors located on the side were both open.
I moved up to the second carriage and peered through the side door.
The carriage was empty. Sort of.
Empty of living people. No Maria.
But it was full of dead bodies.
Dead soldiers.
They lay slumped in the seats of the train. Some lay in the aisle.
Blood covered their bodies and their armor and helmets, and the inside of the carriage. Bullet casings covered the floor.
I had no idea what had happened here.
Did someone shoot all these soldiers?
How?
They would’ve had to have taken them by surprise. Unloaded with a machine gun when they weren’t prepared, weren’t ready.
Maybe they had been asleep. Maybe they were about to go out on a mission. Or maybe they were just coming back.
I climbed up into the train and crouched inside the carriage of death. I was surrounded by dead soldiers.
They looked like Special Forces soldiers.
According to the patches on their uniforms some of them were Para-troopers. Airborne.
These guys were the elite. They were the best of the best. And they had been executed. I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself down. Each of the Para-troopers was wearing a parachute harness. As I moved through the carriage, I could see that they had all been shot multiple times.
There was blood everywhere. And bullet casings. They were concentrated at the doorway that connected the second carriage to the front carriage, like someone had stood there and unloaded magazine after magazine at the soldiers, while they were sitting down.
Loaded bullets littered the floor as well. They were piled up in heaps.
Again, I had to take deep breaths. I had to breathe through my mouth and concentrate and focus so I didn’t throw up. I had to distance myself and think about something else, so it didn’t feel like I was crawling over a pile of dead soldiers.
I moved slowly through the train. I moved up to the door that connected the carriages. I peered through the window.
I was not prepared for what I saw.
I immediately ducked back down so that I was hidden. I put my hand over my mouth so that I didn’t scream.
This is what I saw.
I saw Maria.
Her hands were tied to the hand railing at the far end of the front carriage, near the driver’s cabin. Her face was streaked with tears.
Standing menacingly at the other end of the carriage, right near where I was crouched, was a man. He was shirtless, wearing military style cargo pants. He was wearing a gas mask. The goggles of the mask were tinted black. I couldn’t see his face.
The mask gave him the impression that he was an alien. Or a monster. Something inhuman. His entire upper body was covered in scars. Cuts. Burn marks. I couldn’t tell if they were self inflicted or if someone had done that to him.
He had a number of rifles lined up in the aisle and he was standing over a pile of bullets. He was taking them out of the rifle’s magazines.
One by one.
Maria screamed again and I actually jumped. I crouched down and I waited a few seconds, keeping perfectly still. Then I prepared myself, and I looked again.
“Please!” Maria begged. “Please, don’t hurt me. Please.”
The man in the gas mask ignored Maria. He continued unloading the ammo magazines, flicking each individual bullet onto the floor of the carriage.
“I am immune,” Maria said. “I'm special. Look. I was bitten. See? I didn’t turn. I didn't turn into a monster.”
“Special?” the man said. “You are not special. You are just a vessel. Your body.”
The man’s voice sounded weird as he spoke through the air filters of the gas mask. It sounded unnerving, almost mechanical, like he had artificial lungs or something.
“I swear to you,” Maria continued. “I'm telling the truth. I swear! Please! Please don't kill me. I am immune. They can make a cure, a vaccine from my blood.”
The man looked up at Maria. “A cure? For what? Tell me, what do you want to cure?”
“This plague. The Oz virus.”
“You think you can save people? You think you can save the human race?”
“I...I don't know. Just please... I have to try.”
The man shook his head slowly. “You do not want to save anyone.”
“What?”
“You do not want to save anyone. You just want to save yourself.”
“No. No. I want to help. I can help.”
“No,” he repeated slowly. “You do not want to save the human race. Nor should you. It is better this way. The world is on fire. The world is burning. And it is glorious.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I am talking about a purging fire. I am talking about starting over. I am talking about creating history. For too long we have fought the old wars. For too long we have wasted lives. Our children. Our sons. Our daughters. Our families. So many families have been wasted. But if we create a new history…”
The man in the gas mask trailed off. He was nodding his head like he was agreeing with himself and everything that he was saying.
“This is how we become legendary,” he continued. “Do you think your blood can save us? Do you think your blood can cure the world of this sickness? No. You are wrong. The only way to have our freedom, the only way to have our salvation, is to burn everything to the ground. Burn the old empires. Burn the old memories and the old ways. We purge. We start over. We start a fire. And we watch the world burn. And then and only then will we be free. Only then, will we have our salvation.”
Maria was shaking her head. She was crying heavily. I think she had given up on trying to bargain with him. And so had I.
I decided right then and there that I would need to kill this man. I would need to kill him to save Maria. Take a life to save a life.
But I would need a weapon.
“Look at these weapons!” The man in the gas mask shouted.
And for a split second, I thought he had read my mind, or maybe I was accidentally thinking out loud or something. For a split second, I thought that he was standing over me.
But he wasn’t.
He was walking slowly towards Maria. He was holding a hunting knife.
“This is what I am talking about,” he said as he waved the knife back and forth. “I am talking about weapons. Instruments of evil. Instruments of ill omen. We are taught to use weapons only when necessary. They can take life. They can destroy it.”
He held up the knife in front of Maria. “The blade. The knife. The sword. Folded metal for strength. It was forged in a fire. Under immense heat. The serrations of the blade increase the damage and severity of the wound. The ripping and tearing of flesh. A messy wound is a deadly wound.”
He was getting closer to Maria. I would need to make my move soon.
He took out a handgun and pointed it to all the other guns he had lined up. The guns he had taken from the dead soldiers.
“A gun is even more efficient. Deadly and lethal. A bullet is fired at such high velocity that it completely destroys whatever it touches. But it is limited. It is limited by t
he man firing the gun. It is limited by his physical abilities. His conscience. By ammunition.”
Maria was still shaking her head, tears continued to streak down her face.
“One evil man can make millions of people suffer,” he continued. “One evil.”
The man lowered the gun and then raised the knife so that it looked like he was looking at his own reflection in the blade.
“If you remove this evil, you give life to the millions of people who have suffered. In this regard, weapons are to be considered the divine will of the Gods. In this regard, they are to be considered necessary.”
I scanned the immediate area, looking, searching for a weapon. Anything. I would’ve settled for a rock or a sharp stick at that point. Not a fair fight but I didn't care. I needed to save Maria.
“Bombs,” he continued. “Warheads. Heat and pressure. Nuclear. Weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of fire. A fire burns. Rages. Unsupervised. A fire is alive. It moves. It evolves. As long as there is fuel. A weapon that is alive. A weapon that evolves. A weapon that uses humans as fuel. No ammunition. No limitation. A weapon that is alive. A weapon that will end suffering. A weapon that will end evil. A weapon that will give life.”
Maybe I could bluff him, I thought. Fake it. Point my rifle at his head. Pretend it was loaded.
No. That won’t cut it.
Before I really knew what I was doing, I had slid the empty magazine out of my rifle. I threw it at the far end of the carriage and shattered the rear window. The glass broke and it sounded like the loudest thing in the world. I could almost feel the man in the gas mask turn and look, like I could feel his gaze. Feel the heat from his breath.
A few seconds later, I heard his boots, his footsteps as he came to investigate.
I quickly moved out of the carriage, back out the way I had come in. I hid underneath the train, in the darkness.
I could hear the man in the gas mask as he opened the connecting door and stepped into the carriage.
He began talking to himself. “I should have known,” he said. “You old warriors. You are strong. You are mysterious and powerful. You are the pinnacle of human achievement and endurance. You have carved your bodies; you have built yourselves. You have strengthened yourselves and pushed yourselves to the absolute limit of human capabilities…”
I slowly moved out from under the train and moved back against the wall of the tunnel, making sure I was still hidden in the dark.
The man in the gas mask began slowly walking through the carriage. He took out an ammo mag from his pocket. He loaded the rifle he was carrying. And then he walked through the carriage, putting one bullet into the head of each fallen soldier.
I guess maybe he thought they were infected. Or maybe he thought one of them was still alive or something. Either way, he was making double sure that they were really dead.
My distraction had worked. I had bought myself some time. There were maybe twenty or thirty soldiers. And he was being extremely methodical and thorough, aiming carefully for each head.
I moved towards the front carriage. Made my way to Maria. Her head was lowered. She didn’t see me until I was right next to her.
When she saw me, I had to hold my hands over her mouth so she didn’t scream or cry out or say anything. I had to tell her repeatedly to keep quiet. I pleaded with my eyes for her to keep quiet.
From the rear carriage we could hear each single gunshot.
Bang.
Then a five second pause as he methodically walked through the carriage. Re-killing the soldiers. Making sure.
A bullet in the head.
Bang.
Maria appeared to have calmed down enough so I could speak to her.
I removed my hands from her mouth.
“Shh,” I whispered. “It’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be fine. We just need to get you out of here. We can hide in the tunnels. We can make it.”
I talked to her and I whispered reassuring things. I had no idea if I was lying or not.
Bang.
The gunshot made us jump.
“Untie me,” she said. “Cut me loose. Let’s go.”
Her hands were double tied. Her wrists were bound with a plastic zip tie. And then they were tied to the railing of the train.
I would need a knife to cut her loose. And the only knife I had, was the blunt knife that Kenji had given me.
I really needed to upgrade.
I tried to cut through anyway. I got nowhere.
“Come on,” Maria whispered. “Hurry.”
Suddenly the gunshots had stopped. The silence was unsettling and frightening. It meant that the man in the gas mask was finished re-killing the soldiers. He would be back very soon.
I made eye contact with Maria. “I’m sorry. I need to hide. It’s the only way.”
“What? No. Don’t leave me. Don’t.”
She began to cry again. She was terrified.
“I’ll be right back. I’m not going far. I am coming back for you.”
I scrambled around on my knees, searching the pile of guns and ammunition for something I could use. Unfortunately all of the bullets for the rifles had been removed from their magazines. I did not have time to reload each one. But luckily, I found a shotgun.
And one, single shell.
Just the one.
“What are you going to do?” Maria asked.
“I’m going to kill this bastard.”
Maria was shaking. She was freaking out. She didn’t want me to leave. But I had no choice.
I loaded the shotgun with the single shell.
The only way I was going to kill this psycho was if I did it from the shadows.
Like Ben said. Strike from the shadows. Strike hard. Strike fast.
I’d only get one chance.
Chapter 19
I hid in the driver’s cabin. I kept the door open, hoping he wouldn’t notice. All I had to do was step out, fire the shotgun, and that would be the end of him.
The downside to this plan is that I would have to wait until he got nice and close. Kenji once told me that a shotgun was only effective as a close-range weapon. A shotgun shell was crammed full with ball bearings that sprayed outwards when you fired. The further away the target was when you fired, the less concentrated the blast would be.
So I needed to wait until he got nice and close.
I would also need to make sure that I stepped forward, so I was standing over Maria. If I stood back, there was a chance that I could accidentally shoot her.
I could not take that risk.
All of this raced through my mind as the man in the gas mask walked down the center aisle of the carriage, towards Maria.
Strike from the shadows, I thought to myself. Strike hard. Strike fast.
I was following Ben’s advice to the letter.
This had to work. Failure was not an option.
The man spoke. “Slow and methodical,” he said. “You should have seen the look on their faces when they realized how truly helpless they were. When they knew how insignificant their lives were. They were trapped. They could not do a thing. Not with all their strength and training. Even with all of this, with all of their cunning and skill and force. They were helpless. You can see this all in an instant. It flashes across their faces in their last dying seconds. Flashes through their eyes.”
Maria remained quiet. She had stopped crying. She was waiting for me. She wanted this over and done with.
“You cannot be allowed to live,” the man continued. “You do not understand. You are too dangerous. You are not fit for the new world. A world on fire.”
I peeked around the corner of the doorway.
The man in the gas mask had gripped the knife tightly in his right hand. He raised the blade and took a step forward.
I made my move. I stepped out from the driver’s cabin, making sure I was standing over Maria so I didn’t accidentally shoot her. I made sure I was close to the man in the gas mask so he would take the full
force of the shotgun blast.
The man in the gas mask froze. He had the knife raised.
I aimed. Held my breath.
I took the shot.
Chapter 20
I have never fired a shotgun before in my life. Not even when Kenji and Daniel were teaching us how to shoot. I was too scared to try after Jack nearly dislocated his shoulder. So to say that I wasn’t used to the shotgun was an understatement. As Jack had once said, “It kicked like a damn horse.”
It certainly did.
It kicked violently, causing the barrel to pull up and to the left. The blast took down the man in the gas mask and shattered some of the windows of the train carriage.
For a second my shoulder was numb and I thought I had actually dislocated it.
The man had fallen onto his back about halfway down the aisle of the carriage.
He lay there motionless.
I looked around for more bullets, but I couldn’t see any shotgun shells. I moved towards him slowly. I was now holding the shotgun as a baseball bat.
“Is he dead?” Maria asked. “Please tell me he’s dead.”
“I… I don’t know. I think so.”
I looked around for more shotgun shells but again I couldn’t see any. I moved towards him slowly as I held the shotgun like a bat, ready to swing.
I couldn’t see his face because it was hidden by the gas mask. I tried to remove it but it wouldn’t budge.
And then I saw why I couldn’t budge it. It was sewn into his scalp.
“Oh god,” I whispered.
“What is it?” Maria asked. “Is he dead?”
“The gas mask. It’s stitched into his skin.”
“What?
“The mask is sewn into his scalp and his face.”
“That is so gross.”
I moved his head slightly. It was stitched all the way to the back. It was a messy job. Like he had done it himself. How or why? I had no idea. It made me think that maybe he had inflicted all those other scars on his upper body himself as well.
“Forget him,” Maria said. “He’s dead. Hurry up and cut me loose. We need to get the hell out of here.”
