by J. L. Harden
But how long did Jack have? The door to his holding cell is now wide open. He is completely exposed. Completely screwed.
We watch him through the security camera. He stands up and moves to the door. He peers out. He looks up and down the corridor. But then he hears it. He hears it at the exact same time as we hear it.
It is a noise that I will never forget as long as I live. Which, now that I think about it, is only a few more hours. It is a noise that has come to mean trouble and death and running and hiding. It is the howling, screaming, moan of the infected. It is a noise that begins somewhere in their stomach and chest, the back of their throat.
Jack ducks back inside his room. He slides underneath the single bed in his holding cell.
He has nowhere else to hide. Nowhere else to run.
We are his only hope.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Kim whispers.
Kim crouches down in the corner of the room, away from the door. She grabs me and pulls me down with her.
Stealth is now our only option.
“He said he would save me,” George answers.
“Who?” Kim asks. “Who the hell is the man in the gas mask?”
“He injected me,” George says. “He said he had given me a choice. He said he had given me freedom.”
My eyes had been focused on the door. On the gap between the frame and the floor. Looking and watching for shadows. But then the warden said, he injected me, and I suddenly forget all about the door and the things on the other side.
“He injected you?” I ask.
“Yes. He injected me with a time release nano-virus. He said he would give me the cure, the anti-virus, if I unlocked the holding cells, if I released the infected.”
“And you believed him?” I ask.
“I had no choice!”
“Keep your voices down,” Kim whispers.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Do you know who he’s talking about?” Kim asks me.
I nod. “Yeah. The man in the gas mask did the same thing to me. He injected me with a sedative first and then injected me with a time release nano-virus.”
I showed her the watch. Showed her the countdown.
Fifty-one hours. Less than three days.
George rolls up his sleeve. He has the same watch. “I’ve only got a few minutes left.”
And I think to myself, this is why he is frantic. This is why he is panicking. This is why he is doing the stupid things that he is doing.
And now it all makes sense.
The warden has the same watch as me, and he’s been injected with a time release nano-virus that is programmed to eat anything and everything, including human flesh, and his countdown is nearly at zero.
He has minutes. Less than ten minutes.
This is why he is freaking out.
I wonder if this will be me in three days’ time. I wonder if I will freak out and lose my cool and lose myself. I wonder if I will betray myself and my friends and the people closest to me.
God, I hope not.
Kim shakes her head. She does not fully understand. “What the hell is going on? I dragged my brother into this mess. He wouldn’t be here… if… if…”
Kim is starting to blame herself for everything that has gone wrong. This is not the time to play the blame game.
“You need to keep it together,” I say to Kim. “You know this place. So do you,” I say, pointing at George. “And since you just made getting out of here damn near impossible, you’re going to help us get out. And you’re going to do whatever it takes.”
“I had no choice,” George says. “He blackmailed me with my life. What was I supposed to do?”
“How are you going to get the cure if you're dead?” Kim says.
George looks at his watch. “He’s coming back for me. I know he is.”
“How?” Kim asks. “How the hell do you know that?”
“He knows this place,” George says. “He knows it better than anyone. He outsmarted General Spears for crying out loud. He is a genius. And he will get me out of here. And then he will put a stop to all this madness.”
The warden is delusional. I guess when confronted with your own death people act this way. I know I was. I was still clinging to hope. I was still trying to live, fight, survive.
I had not given up.
See? Delusional.
“Wait,” Kim says. “That man out there knows this place?”
George nods his head. “Better than anyone. He moves through the service tunnels, the maintenance shafts, the air ducts, the shadows.” George holds up the blueprints. “You see this? All of this. He has memorized it all. Not just for the prison. The entire facility. The entire Fortress. He is smart. He is unbelievably smart. And he will come back for me.”
I point to the blue prints. “Are they his?”
“No. Like I said, he’s memorized the entire layout of the Fortress. He doesn’t need them anymore. I got these blueprints because I was trying to figure it out. It’s genius. And the way he talked about the virus. And the nano-swarms. He understands all of it. He can fix it. That’s why he injected us. Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“He injected us for collateral. You can’t trust anyone in this new world. Not anymore. You have to earn trust. Really earn it. He didn’t have time. That’s why he injected us with a time release virus. He was buying our trust.”
“No, he’s a psychopath,” I repeat for the millionth time. “He’s insane. He’s evil. I don’t care how smart he is. You can’t believe a word he says. You’re right about trust. Trust is a hard thing. A dangerous and deadly thing.” Again, I think back to Father Damon. We trusted him. It nearly cost us our lives. “And you can’t trust this guy. He has left us for dead. We don’t survive this. Do you get that?”
George’s eyes are fixed on the security camera footage. He is biting his lip. He doesn’t answer me.
“You need to understand,” I continue. “You need to come to terms with it because we don’t survive this. We are already dead. He wanted you to unlock those cells because he wants the infected to kill any remaining soldiers, any remaining survivors. That’s it. That’s all he wants.” I hold up my watch. “I’ve got less than three days. You’ve got less than ten minutes. What are you going to do? How do you want to be remembered?”
My words, they sound like a threat but I swear I didn’t mean it to.
George does not back down. He keeps at me. He keeps himself in denial. “What did he ask you to do?”
“What?”
“He wants something from you,” George says. “He wants you to do something. He is trying to change you. He is trying to make you see the master plan. His master plan.”
I think about this question. He wants me to watch the world burn. He wants me to watch hope die.
I don’t say this out loud. I can’t say it out loud.
“What does he want from you?” George repeats.
“He… he wants me to watch the world burn. He wants me to watch Maria die.”
“We can’t stop him,” George says. “He is too smart. He is too cunning. He is ruthless. There is no stopping him. That is why we have to do what he says.”
“Goddamn it, George. Are you even listening to yourself? You are already dead. I am already dead. He has killed us. He is killing us. Slowly. He is torturing us.”
George is shaking his head. He does not want to believe.
And I am reminded of something the man in the gas mask said.
The five stages of grieving.
Stage one is denial. And George was still there, he was stuck in this stage. He is unable to move on.
And I am done trying to convince him.
Maybe the man in the gas mask was right. Maybe I will have to kill him.
I look at Kim. I try and make eye contact with her. I try and send her a telepathic message to let her know that we will need to gang up on George and get his gun and probably kill him. But I am unable to get
Kim’s attention. She has moved back over to the computer and is staring at the CCTV footage on the screen. She is glued to the images.
The infected are starting to stumble out of the holding cells.
Jack is still hiding underneath the single bed. I can just see one of his shoes. He is trying to hide as best he can, because he has no other choice.
Suddenly there is a knock at the door, followed by a bump at the door, followed by the scratching of fingernails.
I can see shadows moving and shuffling between the frame and the floor.
We are the three little pigs.
We are hiding behind a wooden door.
We have been talking too loudly.
And now the big bad wolves are here.
Chapter 14
The infected are right outside the door. They know we are here.
I am holding my breath.
I don’t know what to do. We have to move. We have to leave. Without Jack.
Suddenly the lights go out and we are plunged into darkness.
“What the hell?” Kim says.
“He cut the power,” George answers.
“What?”
“He cut the goddamn power.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
The emergency lighting kicks in. These are faint red lights that give barely any light at all.
“Oh god, we’re going to die in here,” George says. “We’re dead. He said he would save me. He promised me. Why is he doing this? Why?”
“Keep your voice down and keep your head together,” I say.
And as I’m telling George to keep his head together, I’m thinking the exact same thing. He said he wanted me to watch the world burn.
He wanted me to watch.
If he wants me to watch, then why is he trying to kill me?
He’s crazy, I tell myself. He is torturing you because he enjoys it. He is a psychopath and he wants you to struggle and beg and run for your life.
This is the reality. Deal with it. I have to focus on surviving. On getting out of this room. Out of this prison. Away from the infected.
Saving Jack.
How do we get out of this?
There has to be a way.
I won’t let Jack get eaten.
I won’t let Jack die.
He did not have long.
His door is wide open.
He is hiding under the bed for crying out loud.
The only good thing, the only thing going for us at the moment, is the infected have obviously heard our voices. So they are currently trying to break into this office room.
They are paying Jack no attention.
George begins to cry.
“I told you to shut the hell up,” Kim says.
“No,” I say. “We need to make noise. More noise.”
“What? Why?”
We need to distract the infected. Keep them occupied. As long as they’re trying to break into this room, they’re not trying to eat Jack.
And right on cue the infected ramp up their assault on the door.
Bang.
The wood begins to splinter.
Kim nods her head. She understands.
George on the other hand, is still coming to grips with everything that has happened, with everything that was promised to him and then taken away. He is losing his goddamn mind.
And I need to get the gun off him. He is proving to be unpredictable and dangerous.
“The door won’t hold,” George says. “It won’t. We’ve got maybe a couple of minutes. And then we’re screwed.”
“We climb through the vent,” I say.
“And go where?” he asks.
“To Jack’s room.”
George shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t climb down into the holding cells. They don’t have vents. Only tiny air holes. They wouldn’t be very secure holding cells if you could just climb out, and come and go as you please.”
Bang. Crack. Wood is no match for a skull turned battering ram.
“We still have to climb through the vent,” I say. “At the moment it’s our only exit point.”
“Agree,” Kim says. “Let’s go.”
I point to the table. “Make sure we take the blue prints. And the ammo.”
I am about to suggest to George that maybe Kim should have the gun, because she is a police officer and is trained to operate firearms. I want to do this as a subtle attempt to get the gun off him. But I don’t get the chance.
George is already on the table, popping the vent out. He is about to climb up and leave us behind. Leave us for dead.
I grab his leg. “Wait just a second.”
“Let go of me. I’m getting out of here.”
“Hold up, buddy. You got us into this mess. You opened those doors and now you need to help us get out.”
“He said he would save me. I had to release them. I had to do it!”
“Oh yeah? Then where the hell is he?”
“He’s here. He’s always here. He’s always watching. I just need to get out of this room. And then he’ll find me.”
Kim and I both pull on his legs, and he eventually stops climbing up into the vent. He stands back on the desk. He then pulls out the gun from the waist of his pants and points it right at my head. “Get back! I’ll shoot you. I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
So that’s where he was keeping the gun. I never would’ve been able to get it off him.
“Do it!” he says. “Get back. Right back. Against the wall. Move or die. I will not hesitate to shoot you.”
And I believe him. He is cornered and desperate and dangerous. He has minutes left. So we reluctantly move back against the wall and put our hands up. George continues to climb and slide into the air vent. Like a snake.
And just like that, George is gone and the door is almost broken and the wolves, the infected are almost through, and Kim and I are in real big trouble.
Chapter 15
George has climbed out of the room, into the air conditioning vent. He has left us to fend for ourselves. To fight for ourselves. To rescue Jack.
He has left us for dead.
This is the way of the world now. Every man, woman and child for themselves. Maybe the world was always like this. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by George’s callousness. He has already tried to kill me today.
So yeah, I shouldn’t be surprised.
We can hear George squeeze and shimmy and slide his way through the air vents.
I’m guessing we have to wait until he is long gone before we even attempt to climb up. If we climb up now while he is still in the vicinity, he will probably turn around and shoot us.
So we have to wait.
Kim grabs the pen light that George left behind and looks at the blueprints.
I keep one eye on the blueprints and one eye on the door.
Bang.
Crunch.
The door is quickly breaking apart.
We need to make a move.
We need to make a plan.
We have a minute. Maybe less.
“I don’t know,” Kim says. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go.”
A chunk of wood splinters off and flies into the room. They can see us now. And the sight of us, the sight of fresh meat spurs them on.
The door begins to break off its hinges.
“Just grab the blue prints,” I say. “Take them with us. We have to get out of here.”
It is the only thing I know for certain.
We have to get out of here.
We need to go. We need to get out of this room.
We stay. We die. Everyone dies.
“Is he gone?” Kim asks. “Is George gone? Will he shoot us?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re out of time.”
It was the lesser of two evils. Face a firing squad or face the infected.
We choose the firing squad.
“Go!”
I roll the blu
e prints up. Kim hands me the pen light and she climbs up into the air vents with ease. She basically does a one handed pull up. I guess she really is feeling a lot better. Her meds, the NVX has kicked in. The nano-bots have turned her into a superhero.
I jump on the desk and hand her the blue prints and the pen light. I reach up and grab on to the edges of the manhole. I pull myself up but I struggle to do this. Kim made it look easy.
I have half my body inside the vent. Half outside. My legs are dangling.
Suddenly, the door breaks open and the infected swarm in. Strong and powerful and frantic hands grab onto me and they nearly pull me down.
Kim takes my hand and all of a sudden I’m in this epic game of tug of war.
I feel like I am being stretched and ripped in half.
I can’t let them bite me.
Don’t let them bite you!
“No!”
Not like this. Not yet. I need more time. Just a little more time.
Three days. Fifty-one hours.
I kick my legs as fast and as hard as I can. I catch one of the infected in the face and they fall back.
I kick again. And again. And again.
Eventually my legs are free. Eventually I’m just kicking the air and Kim drags me up and into the vent.
But we are not out of trouble yet.
As soon as I’m in the vent, as soon as we start crawling and squeezing our way to I’m not sure where, the infected have already jumped on the desk. They are already giving chase.
I look back over my shoulder.
I see hands. Decomposing hands. Hands that are dead yet alive. They are hungry and frantic. Aggressive and strong. They are reaching through the vent. They are reaching out for us.
“Go!” I yell. “Go! Don’t look back.”
Chapter 16
We crawl as fast as we can. This is not very fast.
It’s dark and George is nowhere to be seen. Kim hasn’t switched the torch on yet because fear has taken over and she isn’t thinking straight and I’m not thinking straight. I take another look over my shoulder, ignoring my own advice about not looking back. The infected are all trying to squeeze through the vent at the same time. Another bottleneck.
I can see two or three of them, moaning and howling. They are looking right at us.