by J. L. Harden
“Wait. This place is set to self-destruct?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Daniel answers as he points to the man in the gas mask. “We believe he set the charges. It might’ve been the military. But that seems unlikely.”
I shake my head. “No. He didn’t set the place to self-destruct. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” Daniel asks. “He’s done it before.”
“Because he wanted to publicly execute Maria. He wanted the world to watch. Blowing this place up doesn’t make any sense.”
Daniel has a worried look on his face.
Ben starts moving away. He knows something is wrong. So do I. Something is indeed wrong. Something is messed up.
Daniel moves over to the man in the gas mask and removes his hood. “Did you set the self-destruct sequence? Is this place set to blow?”
No response from the man in the gas mask.
“What happens when the countdown reaches zero?”
The man in the gas mask is on his knees. He has several rifles pointed at his head. But he doesn’t seem to care. He is calm. He is at peace. He is staring up at the unbelievably blue sky.
And he does not answer Daniel.
“One minute.”
Daniel draws his sidearm and presses the barrel against his temple. “Answer me!”
Suddenly we hear several explosions. Three of them. One after the other.
But they are not explosions. Not really.
The noises sounded like they came from outside. From out in the desert somewhere.
We all look up to the sky through the blast doors. A few seconds later we see the smoke trails.
We see three of them.
Missiles have been launched. They are arching high into the sky.
Majestically. Beautifully choreographed.
They are soaring to the heavens.
Higher and higher.
Until we can no longer see them.
We can only see the smoke trails.
The countdown was not for a self-destruct sequence. The countdown was for a missile strike.
“I had a dream about freedom,” the man in the gas mask says. “About a world on fire.”
Suddenly a bright flash lights up the sky, turning it from blue to white. It’s like the sun has intensified a million times. And after the flash, the sky turns the color of fire. And I think to myself, he is going to burn down the old Empires.
The Ospreys and the choppers and the aircraft that I don’t recognize, begin to spin out of control.
They are falling from the sky.
They are coming right for us.
“Secure the targets!” Daniel says, “Take cover! Run!
We turn away from the platform, from the blast doors; we turn away from the sky and the one and only exit point.
We run.
The Ospreys and the choppers and the other aircraft have all spun out of control. They have collided with each other.
They are out of control and falling and crashing through the access point, through the blast doors.
They are coming right for us.
We take cover behind the Humvees. Kenji has his arms around me and I bury myself in his chest.
And Daniel was wrong.
We are not getting out of here. We are not going to be all right. We are not safe.
The aircraft crash into the Vehicle Access Point and turn into fireballs.
The heat burns us, and forces us to duck and cover our heads.
And close our eyes.
And hold our breath.
And pray.
TO BE CONTINUED…
A World on Fire – Book 6 in the series is next!
A WORLD ON FIRE
Book 6 in the Secret Apocalypse series.
By J. L. Harden
If you see God in this world, kill him.
He is not God.
He is a liar.
Doctor Kumar Singh.
(The New World.)
No Escape
There is fire.
All around me.
And this is hell. This Fortress. This research facility. Hell on earth.
It is hell because there is pain, and suffering, and torture, and death.
There is constant death.
But this is the way of life in the Fortress. This is the way of life now, in the outback, in the desert. In Australia. Across the world.
Since the outbreak.
Since the Oz virus.
Since Project Salvation.
Life is torture and pain and death.
Life is suffering.
And this is the ordinary world, all of this fire and brimstone, it’s just another day in the life of anyone who was unfortunate enough to have survived this long.
So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
I shouldn’t be surprised that the man in the gas mask, an educated man, a doctor with military training, had organized and executed a nuclear missile strike.
Why should I be surprised by that?
And just so we are completely clear, just so I am completely accurate, it was three nuclear missiles.
He launched three goddamn nuclear warheads. They were launched high into the sky, high into the atmosphere. And then they erupted and detonated, and they turned the sky white. And then they turned the sky red. And orange. And yellow.
The rescue team of Evo Agents, their choppers and Ospreys and other unidentified flying aircraft, crashed to the ground in a massive fireball of destruction.
And now we are stuck. We are stuck in this circle of Hell that is known as the Fortress.
There is no escape.
One of the Evo Agents had taken cover right next to me. We are seeking shelter behind an armored Humvee. He slowly gets to his feet.
He checks on the man in the gas mask. And then he checks on me. “Are you hurt?” he asks. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. Because I am not all right. I’m pretty goddamn far from all right. And I hate the fact that he checked on the man in the gas mask first. I hate it. And I know this is a bad sign. I know this says a lot.
“I’m going to check on the others,” he says. “Stay right here. Stay down. I’ll be right back. We’re getting out of here.”
He says his name is Miller. John Miller. He is an Evo Agent, which means he is one of the best. It means he is a former Special Forces soldier turned private mercenary.
It means he is a super soldier.
It means he is a piece of property owned by the company.
He runs off, to help the others, to help his dying brothers.
He says we’re getting out of here.
But he is wrong.
I’m starting to realize we will never leave this place. There is no escape. And I’m OK with that. I’ve come to terms with it.
Doctor Hunter once told me that very thing when we were locked up and held captive by General Spears. He had said, “There is no escape from death. No escape but death.”
So maybe that’s my ticket out of here.
Death.
What’s the point of escaping anyway? What’s waiting for us on the outside? What’s waiting for us above ground?
A future?
A safe haven?
A refugee camp?
A home?
No. There is nothing.
Nothing but zombies and nano-swarms and nuclear fallout. Nothing but a goddamn nuclear winter. Nothing but more death and more pain and suffering and starving and dying of thirst.
More carnage. More Chaos.
And this is what the man in the gas mask had wanted. All along. From day one. Before day one. From the very beginning. This is what he wanted. And this is what he got.
Right now, he is kneeling down about ten feet away from me. He appears to be meditating. He is watching his plan happen and materialize and unfold before his very eyes. He is watching intently because I don’t think he even planned on making it this far, on living this long. He was supposed to die in the control center.
He was going to die on camera with me and Maria. We were all supposed to be eaten alive by a nano-swarm.
But that didn’t happen. We were rescued. By Daniel’s team of super soldiers, rescued by the company. And now this psychopath gets to see the final stage of his plan fall into place.
He wanted to set the world on fire and burn down the old Empires. He wanted to create a new world, a new history. A purging fire is what he called it. And we have given him this moment. We have gifted it to him. We wrapped it up in a nice little package and we put a bow on it. We have given him a front row seat to his twisted dream, a front row seat to a nuclear apocalypse.
So maybe we should stay down here. At least down here we are safe from the fallout, safe from the coming winter.
Except staying down here is not really safe at all.
It is probably much, much worse.
It is dark and confined. It is a maze of tunnels and prisons.
It is full of monsters.
So what do we do? Where the hell do we go?
I have no idea.
I see a gun. A handgun. I walk slowly towards it.
I don’t know who this gun belongs to. A dead man probably.
I’m not sure how many Evo Agents just died in the crash landing and the fireball that followed.
A lot.
Most of them.
I look around the large storage hangar that is the Vehicle Access Point. Daniel is checking on his men, or what’s left of his men. I was right. There are not many left. Most of them died when the aircraft crash landed.
I count seven survivors.
These are the men who were lucky enough to have been ordered into the Fortress to rescue Maria and the other people high on their priority list.
Doctor Hunter.
The man in the gas mask.
Kim.
I say they are lucky because the men that stayed above ground with the vehicles are now dead.
They have been burned and crushed and vaporized.
So yeah, the Evo Agents who were ordered down here, into this hellish place known as the Fortress, they were lucky.
And the ones that just survived the fireball, they are even luckier. If I was a superstitious person I would say that these Evo Agents have just about used up all their good fortune for today.
But I am not superstitious.
I am a realist. And the reality of our situation?
We’re all going to die down here.
The surviving Evo Agents are trying to radio to any possible survivors above ground. But there are no survivors above ground. No way.
There is no way anyone survived three nuclear warheads. There is no way they survived the crash landing, the fireball.
Kenji has retrieved a fire extinguisher from somewhere and now he is extinguishing the flames. He is doing this because he is the kind of person who can think clearly and logically under pressure. He is the kind of person who has the capability to do whatever it takes to help those around him.
Big Ben is helping one of the Evo Agents. And by ‘helping’, I mean he is holding his hand as he dies, as he bleeds and burns to death.
That now makes six.
Six surviving Evo Agents.
Kim and Maria are both strapped into stretchers. They have both been injected with heavy duty pain killers and sedatives. They are oblivious to everything that is happening around them. If the Evo Agents hadn’t had the good sense to put them down behind the cover of the armored Humvees while we waited for the extraction, they would’ve died in their sleep.
But the Evo Agents, or rather Daniel in particular, did have the good sense. He knows they are both extremely valuable priorities, targets, specimens.
For the company.
So he hid them, behind an armored tank of a Humvee. And this decision has saved both of their lives.
Jack is kneeling next to his sister and Maria. He has a look of absolute fear on his face. He is making sure they are all right. He is crouched over them, trying to protect them from every single messed up thing that is happening right now. This means, and I’m sure he’s aware of this, it means that he is basically acting as a human shield for them. If another helicopter was to come burning and crashing through the access point, he would cover Maria and Kim with his own body. He would do this because… because that’s just the kind of guy Jack is.
And what am I doing?
I am now standing over the handgun. So I pick it up.
It is most probably a police issued Glock, or a military standard Beretta. Anyway, I pick up this gun, and through all the chaos and fire and smoke and confusion, I walk slowly towards the man in the gas mask. I walk slowly with a gun in my hand. And somehow, through all this chaos, the crash landings and nuclear explosions, I am alone with the man in the gas mask and he is still kneeling down, like he is meditating.
He is calm. He is at peace.
He is some sort of psychotic Zen master.
His hands are handcuffed behind his back. He is bleeding from his stomach from where I stabbed him. The Evo Agents patched him up, but the wound is still bleeding. The bandage has turned a dark red.
I place the barrel of the gun against his temple. I flick the safety off. I know killing him will serve no purpose at this point. No purpose but to fulfill a revenge fantasy
A want.
A desire.
A promise.
I once told Kenji, promised Kenji, just after we had survived the destruction and the bombing of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the massacre, I told him, in the shadows of the ruined bridge, in the shadows of the smoke that filled the sky, I promised him that we would find out who was responsible. We would find them, and we would make them pay.
Well, I found him.
Doctor Tariq Sayid.
Doctor Kumar Singh.
The man in the gas mask.
And I want to kill him. I really, really, really want to kill him.
Because he deserves it. Boy, does he deserve it.
“Don’t do it,” Doctor Hunter says.
The good doctor, the one-handed doctor, is sprawled on the ground a short distance away. He is covered in black ash and smoke. He is coughing up a lung. But he is alive. He survived the crash and the explosions and the fireballs because he is a survivor.
He is a parasite.
And this parasite slowly gets to its feet. “He is more valuable alive. We need him.”
“Bullshit. We don’t need him. No one needs him. It’s over. The virus has spread around the world. We’re all dead. You. Me. Him. We’re all dead. Why shouldn’t I be the one who gets to kill him?”
“Don’t. Please. He’s too valuable.”
“No. No, he is not. He has no value. None whatsoever. You know what’s valuable now? Water. Food. Shelter. Guns. Ammunition. Those NBC suits the Evo Agents are wearing. Those things are valuable.”
I point the gun at the man in the gas mask. “This guy. This… thing. He is not valuable.”
The man in the gas mask nods his head slightly because I think he agrees with me.
“Any last words?” I ask like a seasoned executioner.
“Do what you feel is right,” he whispers. “Do what you must.”
“Don’t give me that crap. Don’t you dare. This is not about what’s right. It’s about what you deserve. You deserve a bullet in your brain. You’ve condemned us to death. You condemned everyone to death. We can’t live down here, we can’t survive down here because you set the infected loose. You infected the Warden with a time release nano-swarm and now that swarm is also running loose. And outside? We can’t go outside because you just launched not one, but three goddamn nuclear warheads. Australia was already a wasteland. A zombie wasteland. And now you’ve turned it into a nuclear wasteland. I… I can’t even believe I’m saying those words. It’s a radioactive, zombified wasteland. You’ve won. You got what you wanted. You’ve backed us into a corner. You’ve taken away all our choices, all our options, all our hopes for survival. You’ve taken away ho
pe. We are all dead. Do you hear me!? We’re all dead! We have nothing to gain and nothing to lose. So now I’m going to kill you. Because you deserve to die. You do not deserve life. You do not deserve to keep breathing. You do not deserve to see the messed up, rotten fruits of your labor. You do not deserve to see your sick, twisted dream come true.”
“It is not a nuclear wasteland,” he whispers.
He is calm.
He is so calm.
And I am not calm. “What?”
I am raging.
“Australia is not a nuclear wasteland,” he repeats. “The warheads were detonated in the upper-atmosphere. There will be minimal to zero nuclear fallout.”
I shake my head. I don’t believe him. “You’re lying. You. Are. Lying.”
I look at Doctor Hunter. I search his blackened and exhausted face for some hint, for some clue as to whether or not this psychopath is telling the truth.
But Doctor Hunter is clueless.
Don’t believe a word he says.
He is a liar.
“They were detonated in the upper stratosphere,” he continues. “Over forty miles. Straight up. The missiles travelled at over Mach four, over four times the speed of sound. It took the missiles less than one minute to reach this height.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you do it? What was the point?”
“The pulse,” he says so quietly that I almost don’t hear him.
“Pulse?” I say. “Speak up.”
I crack him in the side of the head with the barrel of the gun.
This act of violence surprises me. It shocks me more than it shocks the man in the gas mask.
“Don’t do it,” Doctor Hunter pleads. “We need him.”
I don’t care. I. Do. Not. Care.
I’m telling myself I don’t care. I’m telling myself that we do not need him, that he does not deserve to live.
I need to do this. I want to do this. I made a promise.
I am about to pull the trigger. I am about to squeeze the trigger.
I am about to kill the man in the gas mask. I am about to execute him because this is what he deserves, and this is what I want to do.