by J. L. Harden
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.”
“Wait. I need to be sure.”
I tried to feel for a pulse but I couldn’t find one. I couldn’t hear him breathing.
His chest was not moving.
“What the hell happened to this guy?” I asked.
His body was absolutely mutilated. His torso was covered in scars. Cuts and burn marks. It was a mess.
Maria was getting impatient. “Rebecca, come on! Forget him. Cut me loose.”
“The knife. Where is his knife?” I asked.
“Ah, I don’t know. He must’ve dropped it.”
I scanned the immediate area for it. The knife had landed near his head, under the seats.
I crouched down and reached for the knife, keeping one eye on the body.
The knife had slid a fair way under the seats. I had to stretch out to reach it.
“Can you see it?” Maria asked.
“Yeah. Almost got it.”
I ended up getting closer to the body of the man than I would’ve liked, but I eventually retrieved the knife.
I quickly cut through Maria’s ties. She held her wrists and rubbed them better.
I hugged her tight, held her close. I had nearly lost her.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I was so scared.”
“Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault. We knew the risks.”
“Yeah, but still. I thought you were…”
“Don’t say it. I don’t want to think about it.”
I nodded. We had to stay positive. We were relying on each other for courage.
“So what happened?” I asked, pointing to the body. “Who the hell is that guy?”
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast,” Maria answered. “I climbed down the ladder. Felt like I was climbing for hours. I was holding on tight. It was so dark, I couldn’t see anything. I basically had to feel my way down. I finally reached the bottom. I felt my way to the door, the emergency access to the tunnel. But it was locked. So I waited. I was so scared, just waiting in the dark for that crazy bearded soldier. I was convinced that he was going to kill you. And I was powerless to stop him, to do anything. So I just had to sit there in the dark. Waiting. Not knowing. After a few minutes I thought I could hear breathing. I heard footsteps. Boots crunching on gravel. I thought it was the crazy soldier. But it wasn’t the soldier. It was him,” she said, pointing to the man in the gas mask. “He grabbed me. Pulled me on to the train. Tied me up. He told me that he had killed those soldiers in the other carriage. He said they were the elite. Trained warriors. And he killed them all. Killing me would be easy.”
She paused. Took a deep breath. It’s not easy to talk about someone wanting to kill you. “But he took his time,” she continued. “I think he wanted to savor it or something. Like he was enjoying it. He said he didn’t expect to see me. Not out here in the desert. Not down here in this place. He said that my presence proved to him that he was doing the right thing. It was fate and destiny and chaos. He was crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “But yeah, he killed all those soldiers. This guy is a mass murderer. A killer. A psychopath. We need to get the hell out of here. We need to get the hell away from this place.”
“I could not agree more,” I said.
“Wait, how did you get away from that soldier?” Maria asked. “How did you get down here?”
“Big Ben showed up.”
“What? He’s alive?”
“Yeah. He said he got away just before the outpost blew up. He figured we had done the same. He came here for revenge. And in the process he saved me. For the second time. He shot the crazy soldier with a rifle. Shot him right in the head.”
“Wait. Why does he want revenge? Revenge for what?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I answered. “He said that they took something from him. His life. His freedom.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. But someone cut the tattoo off his forearm. The tattoo of the barcode.”
“Cut it? Like, cut the skin?”
“Yeah, they sliced it right off. He thinks whoever did it is down here. They knew they needed a barcode to get in. The barcode is the key.”
“For the trap door?”
“No. It opened a massive platform. We descended down into this airplane hangar. It was bigger than a football field. It’s absolutely massive.”
“What is this place?” Maria asked.
“According to Ben, this is the Fortress.”
Maria’s eyes lit up. “What? No way. This is the Fortress? We found it?”
“Yeah. The reason the vehicles, the tank tracks had disappeared is because they were lowered into the storage hangar. It’s the perfect camouflage. It’s the perfect hiding spot. That’s why the dreadlocked woman and Ben said we would never find this place on our own. It’s because this whole facility is underground. Deep underground. I’m not entirely sure, but I guess these train tracks lead to the central headquarters or whatever.”
“So we found it,” Maria said. “I can’t believe it. We found it. We have a chance to find the others. Jack and Kim and Kenji. They have to be down here. They just have to be. Where else would they be?”
Maria’s spirits had been immedi
ately lifted. Suddenly she wasn’t so worried about cheating death. She was determined to find the others. And I must admit, her confidence, even if it was misplaced, it gave me strength.
I knew the odds of finding our friends down here were slim to none.
And finding them alive?
I had to stop thinking about the odds.
“Wait, where’s Ben?” Maria asked.
“He’s back down the tunnel,” I said motioning with my head. “He’s not doing so good.”
“Well, we still need to get him. We can’t just leave him here.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Plus he’s been here before. He knows this place.”
“Do you think we could use this train?” Maria asked.
“I think we should walk in,” I said. “We don’t even know if this train works. And I have no idea how to drive it. Do you?”
“No. But maybe Ben does.”
“I don’t think he’s in a position to drive anything. He’s in pretty bad shape. I’m not sure, but I think he’s dying.”
“Oh.”
“But we better go and get him,” I continued. “Like you said, we can’t just leave him there to die.”
“What do we do about him?” she said, pointing to the man in the gas mask.
“Forget him. He’s dead. Let’s just go and get Ben. And then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
I looked back at the man in the gas mask. He lay sprawled on his back. Motionless.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go. Stay close. We need to hurry and then we need to get as far away from here as possible.”
We began walking back to where Ben had collapsed. We used the torch on my rifle so we could see.
“I should probably try and load one of those empty magazines,” I said. “I hate not having any ammo. We’re too vulnerable.”
Maria nodded. “Yeah, I agree. But we should be safe down here as long as we keep quiet, right?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said.
“Why?”
“Back in the hangar, there were infected people. And there was a rogue nano-swarm.”
“A swarm? Down here? How did it get in?”
“I don’t know. It must’ve snuck in, it beat the proximity alarm. It got through the blast doors just before they closed.”
“How did you get away from it?”
“When it set off the proximity alarm, it set off a security failsafe, a purge.”
“A purge?”
“Yeah, basically the hangar turned into a giant oven. A furnace.”
“So it should be dead, or whatever. It should’ve burned up, right?”
“That’s the idea. But I don’t want to take any chances. There were infected people in there as well. They were trapped in the tanks. It was like the Special Forces soldiers had gone out and rounded them up and captured them. Brought them back here on purpose. We killed about twenty or so. But there could be more. So we’ve got to keep moving. We need to get as far away from here as possible. We need to get Ben and go quickly.”
“Good point.”
We picked up the pace. We ran back down the track. It was a lot further than I remembered. A lot further. We finally made it to Ben. He was still lying on his back. I hoped he wasn’t dead. If he was dead we were screwed.
I knelt over him. “Ben!”
No response.
I was about to slap him in the face, but before my palm connected with his cheek, he caught my wrist.
“Please, don’t.”
“Thank god, you’re alive.”
He sat up awkwardly. He was still holding his stomach. “Not for long. I’m bleeding out here.”
“Don’t say that. You can make it. You have to make it.”
“Where is your friend?”
“I’m right here,” Maria answered.
“Wow. There’s something you don’t see every day.”
“What’s that?”
“A miracle,” he said. “Did I hear gunshots?
It was taking him considerably effort to talk. He began drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Maria was in the train,” I said. “She had been tied up by someone. He was about to kill her. He was saying some pretty messed up things.”
“Seems to be a lot of that going around. Was it a soldier? Civilian?”
“I don’t know. But I was able to take him out,” I said. “Shot him point blank with a shotgun. I did it just like you said. But I can’t tell if it’s a civilian or a soldier. He’s wearing a gas mask. His face is hidden. I can’t get it off. Not that I really want to. His body is all mutilated and scarred.”
“Scars?”
“Yeah. Cuts and burns and grazes and stuff. It’s pretty gross.”
Ben tried to sit up. “We need to take the mask off,” he said. “Show me the body. I need to know who that is.”
“That might be a bit difficult. The mask appears to be stitched into his scalp.”
“I need to know,” he repeated. “We need to take the mask off.”
“OK, sure. Let’s get you to the train. We can probably use it to move through the tunnel. We think it’s still working. We can use it to travel the rest of the way. Sure as hell beats walking, right? And there’s no way we can carry you all the way.”
Ben’s eyes flickered. They were half open. “The train? No.”
“What?”
His head dropped forward.
“Ben?”
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Not the train. Not safe.”
“What’s not safe? Ben? It’s safe now. I shot that guy. Maria is safe.”
He was out. He was dying. He was bleeding to death. Right before our eyes. And there was nothing we could do to stop that. Hopefully there was a doctor or surgeon or medical facility down here at the other end of these tracks.
“We can’t carry you the whole way,” I said. “You’re too heavy. We have to take the train.”
I just hoped we could get it working.
I shook Ben by the shoulders. But he was out. He was unconscious again.
We would have to drag him back to the train.
Chapter 21
We began dragging him along the track. He weighed a ton. We had to stop every twenty feet or so to rest. My hands were on fire. My knuckles and my fingers, they had locked up with pain. We let go of him to catch our breath and shake our fingers loose.
“We can’t carry him the whole way,” Maria said. “We’ll need to get that train moving.”
I nodded.
We resumed dragging him along. It was getting harder and harder to get a good grip.
I looked back at the train. It was an island of light in an otherwise dark tunnel. It was like a beacon.
Come on, Rebecca, I thought to myself. Just one foot after the other. One step at a time. We need to get out of here. We need to get far away from that airplane hangar.
Simple goals.
Get to the train.
Get out of here.
And then what?
I had no idea what came next.
Hopefully we would find someone in charge. Someone who hadn’t lost their mind. Someone who didn’t want to enforce the military’s containment protocol. Or the Lockdown procedure.
Hopefully we would find Jack and Kim.
And Kenji.
It was hard to think about Kenji.
So it was best not to think about Kenji.
We kept dragging Ben towards the train. We finally made it.
My hands ached and burned. They were shaking.
“OK, let’s lift him into the carriage,” I said.
Maria nodded wearily.
I turned and looked through the door at the man in the gas mask. He was lying where we had left him.
“What do we do with him?” Maria asked. “Should we throw him off the train?”
“Yeah. But let’s get Ben inside first.”
Together we lifted Ben into the train.
“Damn, he’s heavy,” Maria
said.
We dragged him into the driver’s cabin.
Maria was worried. “Is Ben… is he dead?”
“I don’t know.” I leant forward, checked his pulse. “No. He’s alive. Barely. But he needs medical attention. He needs help.”
“Maybe there’s like, a hospital down here or something? Do you think?”
“Yeah,” I answered confidently, even though I wasn’t sure. “Of course there is. He’s gonna be fine.”
Maria stood. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea,” I said as I scanned the control panel. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
There was a ‘start’ button for the engine. A throttle. Forwards. Reverse. Brake.
“Come on, we should be able to figure this out,” I said.
“Yeah,” Maria said. “But before we go, we should get rid of that body. It’s giving me the creeps.”
“All right,” I agreed. “We’ll throw him into the tunnel. Beats bringing him with us.”
We walked out of the driver’s cabin.
I stood in the center aisle and a surge of adrenalin shot through my veins.
I felt light headed.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
The body was gone.
Chapter 22
“Oh no,” Maria said. “No. No. No.”
“Shh. Stay calm,” I whispered even though I was freaking out.
“I thought he was dead,” Maria said. “You shot him. He was dead. What the hell?”
“I don’t know,” I answered as I spun around, looking. Searching. There was nothing. “Where the hell did he go? Where’s the body?”
We stood in the aisle of the train carriage, unable to move. Unable to act. We were paralyzed with fear. My heart started to beat faster and harder.
“This is bad,” Maria said. “We should’ve shot him in the head. We should’ve stabbed him. We should’ve cut his head off. We should’ve...”
“What?” I snapped. “We should’ve done what? We were out of ammo. He was dead. I shot him. He was dead.”