The Sixth Level (Secret Apocalypse Book 2)

by James Harden

  He turned the key in the ignition one more time and the engine struggled and sputtered and eventually it roared to life.

  "See?" Jack said. "Just needed a little positive thinking."

  We made our way to fuel station. Luckily it wasn’t far. The Humvee began to stall but it had enough fuel to get us there. It was a huge relief because I did not feel like pushing such a big, heavy car for any amount of distance.

  We had driven towards the back of the golf course. Alongside the western edge of the course was a main road. And just on the other side of the road was the fuel station.

  It was a pretty big fuel station. It had plenty of pumps. It even had a large convenience store attached, almost like a mini supermarket. There was also a Burger King attached to it. And around the back of the station appeared to be some sort of junk yard or car wrecking yard.

  Jack drove off the golf course and across a main intersection, nudging and smashing a few abandoned cars out of the way. Across the road from the fuel station was a huge IKEA store. Maria said something about how it would be cool if we could hide out there for a few days. We could make our own ultra-modern, ultra-chic living room and dining room set up.

  "Apparently that’s the biggest IKEA in the southern hemisphere," Jack informed us.

  "Really?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I think so. Actually, I’m not sure. But look at it. It’s pretty damn big."

  He had a point. It was a huge store, a huge building. And I totally agreed with Maria. It would be awesome to hide out there. But we all knew it wouldn’t be safe.

  Jack parked the Humvee next to one of the pumps.

  "What if they’re turned off?" I asked.

  "They should have a manual pump," Daniel answered.

  Jack switched the engine off. He was about to get out and fill the car up but Kenji grabbed his arm. "Hang on a second."

  "What is it?"

  "We still need to be careful," Kenji said. "We're not out of the woods yet."

  He was right. As soon as we'd driven off the golf course and across the road we’d exposed ourselves to the possibility of another ambush. We were now back on the outskirts of the inner city suburbs. The infected could be hiding anywhere.

  "So what do you want me to do?" Jack asked. "We gotta fill this baby up."

  "Daniel and I will set up a perimeter," Kenji said. "Once we've secured the area, we'll give you the all clear. Rebecca, you stay in the car with Maria. Jack, you fill up as fast as you can, OK? The less time spent here the better."

  We all nodded in agreement.

  "You ready?" Kenji asked Daniel.

  "Yeah, let's go."

  I think Kenji loved the fact that he had another trained soldier to help with these types of situations. And we were extremely lucky to have them with us. We wouldn't have lasted long without them.

  Daniel and Kenji moved quickly. They looked through the windows of the convenience store and the Burger King. They moved to the edge of the building, checking around the corners. When they were satisfied we were alone, at least for the moment, they gave the all clear.

  Jack hopped out of the car and fiddled with the pump. The first pump he tried didn’t work. And neither did the second one. "Ah guys, it's not working."

  "What's not working?" Kenji asked.

  "The fuel pump."

  "What about the manual pump?"

  "There is no manual pump. It's all automated. It's all computerized."

  My heart sank. I was really starting to like this Humvee.

  "Let's check the car yard around the back," Daniel suggested. "Maybe they've got some cans of fuel? Might not be enough for a full tank but at least it would be something."

  The guys jumped back in the car. Jack turned the key and the engine struggled to life once more. The car limped around the back of the fuel station to the wrecking yard. The Humvee lurched, and stalled to a stop in front of what appeared to be the main garage. It was now completely out of fuel. No way there'd be enough to start it back up again. Let alone drive to the airport.

  If we couldn’t find any fuel, we'd either have to walk the rest of the way or find another car.

  I did not want to walk.

  The wrecking yard seemed to be full of broken down cars. Down the far end of the yard were the newer models and the cars that had only slight damage. Closer to the main garage were the cars that were in worse shape, most of them had been completely written off. And then right next to the garage were a few stacks of flattened cars, completely unrecognizable. They were stacked up at least twenty feet high.

  Inside the main garage was a newer looking Mercedes. Next to that was another car that I didn’t recognize. It had been lifted up on to the mechanical lifting thing so the mechanics or whoever could get access to the underside of the car.

  We figured if there was any fuel back here, it would be in the garage. Or maybe in one of the cars. I guess we could try and suck the fuel out through a hose. I'd never actually done that before but I’d seen it done in movies and on TV.

  Jack pulled the handbrake on.

  "OK, same deal as before," Kenji said. "Rebecca, Maria, you guys stay in the car. Daniel and I will secure the area. When I give the all clear, Jack you come with me, and we’ll look for the fuel inside the garage. Daniel will provide cover on the far side of the Humvee."

  Again, we all nodded in agreement.

  Kenji and Daniel moved swiftly towards the far end of the yard, knees bent, rifles up to their shoulders. They must be running low on ammo, I thought to myself.

  When they got to the far end of the yard, near the newer cars, they stopped and paused briefly. They checked a few of those cars out. I guess they were checking to see if any of them were functional. Maybe it would be possible to take one of those cars if we couldn’t get the Humvee refueled. That might be an option. A regular car wouldn’t be as good as the Humvee but it would be a million times better than walking.

  Kenji and Daniel made their way back towards us. Kenji waved to Jack, letting him know it was safe.

  "Back in a jiffy," Jack said.

  He got out of the car, leaving his door open and headed for the garage.

  Daniel stayed outside on the far side of the Humvee, keeping a careful watch.

  Jack and Kenji made their way inside. It was a fairly large and open garage.

  At the entrance were some metallic artworks. Sculptures, I guess they were. Some of them looked like weather vanes. Others looked more like metallic monsters. There was one I recognized as being the creature from the movie ‘Alien.’

  "Check that out," I said to Maria.

  "Wow. That’s messed up," she said, scrunching her face up in disgust.

  "I think it’s kinda cool."

  It was a life sized replica. It was at least nine feet tall. It appeared to be made up of scrap metal and spare car parts. The more I looked at it the more I realized just how big it was. It was huge. As a fan of the Alien series, I thought it looked awesome. But I could totally see why someone who had never seen the movies would be terrified. The thing looked like a living nightmare. It had huge talon-like claws, razor sharp teeth. And of course the distinctive banana shaped head. But apart from all that, I think the thing that freaked me out the most about the Alien monster was that it had no eyes. I don’t know why but that always scared the hell out of me.

  I began to notice more sculptures inside the garage. There was a trio of what looked like Velociraptors in mid-stride. And something that looked like a dragon. One of the bigger ones looked like a giant spider. And when I say giant, I mean it would've been the size of a truck. It looked like it was hiding in the far corner of the garage between some equipment and the wall. There was a tarp covering half of it so it was probably even bigger then what it appeared to be.

  Whoever made these sculptures must have been very dedicated to their art. And probably even a little crazy.

  "Do you think one of the mechanics who worked here made these things?" Maria asked

  "Don�
�t know. Maybe."

  "Do you think he sold them, as like, art or whatever?"

  "Who the hell would buy something like this? And where would they put it?"

  After a couple of minutes I had to look away from the sculptures because I started to imagine them coming to life.

  But as I turned away I thought I could hear something. Breathing maybe. Like a purring noise. Like a cat purring. A very big cat.

  It was strange. I couldn’t be sure but it sounded like it was coming from the garage.

  "Can you hear that?" I asked Maria.

  "Hear what?"

  "Like, a purring noise?"

  "A purring noise?" She asked. "Like a cat?"

  "Sort of."

  I leant over the front seat and stuck my head out of the driver side door. "Daniel, can you hear that noise?"

  But he had his index finger up to his lips, urging me to be quiet. He had his head tilted to the side. He was listening. He had already heard it. And he was scared.

  Inside the garage, Jack and Kenji were making their way through boxes, and crates and oil drums. I don’t know if they heard it. Maybe they were too distracted, too focused on finding the fuel.

  Jack had moved over near the spider sculpture in the far corner. He grabbed the blue tarp that was covering it. And pulled it off.

  As soon as he did we heard the unmistakable screaming howl of the infected.

  The whole sculpture, the metallic spider seemed to stand up on its legs, all eight of them. It lurched forward. It was an awkward movement, like it was being operated by cheap hydraulics or something. But when it extended one of its legs, it knocked Jack clear off his feet. He slid across, the oil and dust covered concrete floor of the garage, back towards the Humvee.

  He must’ve slid into the back tire, because we heard him thud into it. Maria screamed. She tried to open her door to see if Jack was all right. But I grabbed her arm, pulled her back.

  It was too dangerous.

  Because now we could see what the tarp was covering. It seemed to be covering the spider’s 'abdomen'. If you could call it that. Except it was more like a cage. A spherical cage. And inside that cage were the infected. I couldn’t see how many were inside because they were all crammed in together, in a massive writhing ball of decaying, bloody flesh. It was a tangled mess of limbs and bones and teeth.

  Just then the cage seemed to split open ever so slightly, just enough for the infected to squeeze out. They cut themselves to shreds on the cage as they did.

  It’s like they were being released. It was surreal to see, unnerving, terrifying.

  I saw Jack get to his feet and make a run for it down the side of the garage. A second later the infected smashed into the side of the Humvee.

  Then they began to bang their fists and heads against the small reinforced windows.

  Chapter 33

  Daniel jumped on to the roof of the Humvee and started shooting. He was yelling at us to get out of the car. "Run! Go!"

  At first I was reluctant to leave the relative safety of the Humvee. But then I figured it was out of fuel, it was useless. And even though it was built like a tank and practically indestructible and zombie proof, we had to go. We just had to.

  I opened my door and pulled Maria out with me. We started running. I had no idea where Jack or Kenji were. Daniel was still on the roof of the Humvee. He was still shooting. But a few seconds later he ran out of ammo. So he jumped down and ran after us.

  As I looked back over my shoulder I saw Daniel sprinting, trying to catch up with us. And beyond him I saw Jack. He had made it down the side of the garage. He was trying to climb up and over the fence of the car yard. The fence was a chain link style fence, maybe twenty feet high. Jack had made it about half way up when an infected woman wearing a blood soaked Burger King uniform grabbed his leg. He was kicking and trying to pull himself free and get higher up the fence, desperately trying to get away. Luckily the infected woman only had one arm. The other one had been ripped off at the elbow and her head was bent back at an awkward angle, so she couldn’t really reach up and bite him.

  Daniel caught up with us as he was reloading.

  I pushed Maria into his arms. "Take her!" I said. Actually, it was more like I ordered him.

  Next to me was an old tractor tire. It was worn down so it had barely any tread left. I picked it up with ease, thankful for the increased strength the NBC suit provided. I swung the tire around with two hands, spinning in a circle and then released it, launching it at the infected woman wearing the blood soaked Burger King uniform.

  It hit her in the side, right in her ribcage. I heard a sickening crack, as she fell to the ground. Jack continued to climb up and over the fence.

  Once he was over and climbing back down the other side, I pointed out to the main road, back towards the golf course. "Meet us out there!"

  He nodded his head and gave us the thumbs up. Surprisingly he seemed pretty calm and collected despite his near death experience. It made me wonder how many close calls they'd had while I was back in LA, in the luxury of the penthouse suite. How long did a person have to live in constant danger before they became used to it?

  Daniel grabbed my shoulder and started pulling me towards the road. "Come on! We gotta go!"

  "Wait! Where is Kenji?"

  I was running backwards, trying to spot him, trying to see where he was. Did he get out in time? Where was he?

  And then I saw him.

  He had somehow scrambled and climbed up one of the stacks of flattened cars. He was at the very top. He looked down and saw the infected trying to climb up after him. Then he looked across and saw Jack climbing down the fence on the other side of the garage. Jack had stopped half way down and was yelling out to Kenji, waving him forward.

  Kenji jumped across from the stack of cars on to the garage, landing with a loud clang on the metal roof. He began running to the other side, each footstep louder then the next with his big heavy army boots.

  For a split second I thought he was going to make it easily. That he and Jack would climb down the fence together and meet us out on the road.

  But then that giant spider thing crawled to the entrance of the garage. It started to come towards us. It climbed over the Humvee, its legs completely wrapping around the vehicle. It was weird, the spider thing appeared to be made of car parts and scrap metal. Sort of like the other sculptures.

  But then it paused. It stopped, turned. Almost like it heard Kenji running across the roof. And then with deceptive speed and power it reached up with one of its legs and punched through the roof, knocking Kenji off his feet, missing him by the slimmest of margins.

  The spider thing then punched another one of its legs through the roof and pulled itself upwards, climbing up to the ceiling of the garage.

  Kenji tried to get to his feet but the whole structure began to sway. He stumbled to his knees but then fell over on to his side and began sliding down the roof. He fell off, landing on his back with a thud on the dirt ground.

  The garage continued to sway. The spider was climbing around, upside down on the ceiling. But it was too heavy. The roof collapsed, the walls, everything. The whole garage came crashing down. Dust and dirt billowed up into the sky. The spider was buried, at least for the moment.

  I ran back for Kenji. I didn't really think. I just acted. I jumped over the rubble and wreckage of the garage. I picked Kenji up, got him to his feet.

  He was coughing, trying to catch his breath.

  I put his arm around my neck and we ran back towards the road. But I looked up and froze.

  A group of infected had survived the collapse of the garage, they were running after Daniel and Maria. Daniel was low on ammo, so they ran. They had to. Maria tried to come back for us, but Daniel grabbed her and pulled her along.

  There was just too many infected running after them.

  A split second later Daniel and Maria disappeared around the corner of the fuel station.

  Kenji and I had to find another
way back out to the road.

  "Climb over!" Jack shouted from the other side of the fence.

  He was crouched down next to a building on the other side, hiding next to a bunch of garbage cans.

  I looked at Kenji. He was in bad shape. "Can you climb?"

  He nodded. I think he knew he didn't have a choice.

  We started climbing over the fence. And beneath the rubble of the garage, beneath the metal roof and walls we could hear that spider thing trying to get to its feet.

  I got to the top and helped Kenji over. Once we were on the other side we sprinted back towards the road. Our plan was to get back to the safety of the golf course.

  But as wan ran out on to the middle of the road we saw something that made us all stop dead in our tracks. To our left, about half a mile down the road, were thousands of infected. They were stumbling out from a hidden tunnel somewhere.

  There’s no way we could run down there without being spotted. We turned to the right but again, about half a mile down the road, more and more infected were appearing out of a hidden tunnel. The whole thing reminded me of an ants nest. Angry, angry ants, pouring out from an underground nest to attack and defend their home.

  "What the hell? Where are they coming from?" I asked in disbelief.

  Kenji was hunched over trying to catch his breath. When he saw the infected, he straightened up, wincing as he did. He shouldered his rifle but even as he readied himself to fire he knew there was no point. We had nowhere near enough ammunition.

  Running.

  Hiding.

  Again, these were our only options.

  Jack swore and ran his hands through his hair. "Oh no. Oh crap. I can’t believe I forgot! I didn’t even think..."

  "What? What is it?"

  "There’s a tunnel, an underground road way. The Eastern Distributor. It leads all the way from the city. The road is directly below us. Whole stretches of it are underground. We gotta go!"

  We ran across the road. In the middle of the road was a raised median strip, a divider that separated the north bound and south bound lanes of traffic. The divider also served as sort of a sunroof for the tunnel below. And as we ran past it, we could see through the metal slates of the sunroof. Each slate was a few feet apart. Underneath the road, inside the tunnel was a river of infected. They were all moving in one direction. They were all moving with one single purpose.