by James Harden
I have a bullet wound.
The needle and thread disappears under my skin momentarily.
Pulling. Tugging.
I turn away and I actually feel the blood drain away from my face. My vision narrows and I become extremely light headed. I lean out the window awkwardly and I throw up bright yellow bile.
“Do you know how hard it is to shoot someone in the wrist?” Daniel says. “Without completely shattering the bone, without totally severing the radial artery, without destroying the entire arm?”
I shake my head.
“It’s almost impossible.”
“Why did you shoot me?” I ask. “And why did you tackle me to the ground?”
“You know why.”
“No. I don’t,” I say, playing dumb. “I have no idea.”
I have failed four times.
And on two of these occasions, the most recent attempts, Daniel has stopped me. These numbers swirl around in my head. And I know the reason why Daniel did these things. I know why he stopped me. I know why he risked blowing my arm off. I know why he risked killing me.
I know why.
But I want him to say it. I need him to say it. Out loud.
“We need him alive,” Daniel says.
“Do we? Are you sure about that? He’s caused nothing but death. Everywhere he goes. He causes death. More than just death, it’s… it’s genocide. It’s extermination. It’s annihilation.”
He is the creator of an extinction level event. Architect of the apocalypse.
“He knows too much,” Daniel says. “He knows everything.”
“So? So what? Seriously, what could he tell you that would change anything? What could he possibly say that would fix anything?”
Daniel doesn’t answer me because he knows I’m right. He knows there’s no way anyone can fix this.
“We’re too far gone,” I say. “It’s over.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what? That it’s over? Well guess what? It’s over. The virus has spread right around the world. It has spread to every single continent. I saw the live images. Hot off the satellite. New York is gone. LA is gone. Chicago, gone. Japan. China. India. The rest of Asia. Overrun. Europe. London. Paris. I could keep naming capital cities if you want.”
He lowers his head. He knows. He’s seen it as well.
“The images,” I say. “They must be from news choppers, or surveillance drones.”
Daniel nods his head because maybe some of those drones, or all of them, are owned and operated by the company.
“The smoke plumes over a major city,” I whisper, mainly to myself. “Such a weird sight. It tells you instantly. It tells you right away the city has fallen. That the infected have taken over. Smoke over Manhattan. The twisted remains of the world’s most famous bridges. I saw London burning. I saw the ruins of the Tower Bridge. I saw militaries the world over, killing innocent people. I saw them closing down and barricading major highways. Every single street and road and goat track. Every single way out of those cities. Any city. They shut them down. Barricaded them. Cut them off. Isolated them. Quarantined them. And when the people tried to run, when they tried to break through, they were shot. They were firebombed.”
Daniel continues stitching my wound as I talk to myself. The needle continues to disappear and reappear, tugging and pulling my skin tight, closing my bullet wound.
“I’ve seen so many bridges destroyed,” I say. “The Tower Bridge in London. Every single bridge around Manhattan. They are all destroyed. They are all ruined. Twisted and ruined.”
I picture the Brooklyn Bridge in my mind. I remember back to when I first met Kenji. We walked across the bridge as the sun set. When we reached Manhattan it was dark. We saw a shooting star.
“I know it’s bad,” Daniel says. “I know.”
I look at Daniel. He has streaks of dried blood down the side of his face. When he breathes, when he talks, when he moves, he grimaces in pain.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
“Not sure,” he says. “Busted ribs I think.”
“From the crash?”
“Yeah.”
He shifts in the seat. I can tell he is in a lot of pain.
But he keeps going. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t stop. Because what is the alternative?
“How many people have died now?” I say. “Millions? Billions? How many people have been killed by the military? How many people have been killed by bullets, as opposed to the Oz virus? How many killing fields are there now? One day, when aliens find this place and they find these mass graves outside of these crumbling, ruined cities, when they find skeletons with holes in their chests and heads. What will they think of us?”
I’m rambling now. And crying. Not heavy crying. But my eyes have watered. Tears streak down my face. I’m slurring my speech. From blood loss. Exhaustion. Malnutrition. Dehydration.
“My eyes are so heavy,” I say.
“I gave you something for the pain,” Daniel says.
“Oh great. More drugs. I’m going to turn into an addict if I’m not careful.”
Daniel is concentrating on threading the stitches through my skin, closing my wound.
“Why do you really need him?” I ask. “Why are you really back here? What are you doing here?”
“We need him so we can question him,” Daniel answers. And then after a while he says, “Because I was ordered to.” He says this quietly. “I’m following the chain of command. The company wants him alive.”
“What if something were to happen?” I say, conspiring casually about killing a man. “You could tell your superiors that he slipped and fell. You could say he was eaten. You could make anything up.”
“They would find out,” Daniel says. “They always find out. We’ve got recording equipment on our suits. Although after the nuclear blast, the EMP, I don’t think they’re working properly. But they also have access to the CCTV cameras down here. Or at least they did. Before.”
They are watching. They are always watching.
“EMP?” I ask.
“From the nuclear warheads.”
I look out the window of the Humvee. I look up at the blast doors, at the outside world and the blue sky. The Evo Agents are still trying to close the blast doors manually, using a massive long chain. The blast doors inch closer together.
I can’t help but feel like they are sealing a tomb. Like we are being buried alive.
Sunlight disappears.
The Vehicle Access Point grows darker.
“How much nuclear fallout have we been exposed to?” I ask.
“I’m not sure.”
I turn away. The sight of the needle is making me feel sick. Or maybe it’s the fact that there are so many things trying to kill us right now that is making me feel sick.
Zombies.
Nano-swarms.
Death Squads.
Nuclear fallout.
A psychopath in a gas mask.
“But I still have hope,” Daniel says.
“Hope?”
“Yes. You have to have hope. For your friends. This is what you are fighting for. This is what you are living for. This is why you have been risking your life since I met you. Your friends. This is your family now. Do you understand that?”
I do. I understand. I swear.
Kenji. Jack. Maria. Kim.
Even Big Ben.
These guys are my family.
“You can’t just give up,” Daniel says. “You can’t. If that man, if that thing, that psychopath out there, if he can possibly help in any way, then I have to take him back. I have to. It’s my responsibility. It’s my duty.”
What Daniel says makes perfect sense. It is logical. It is rational.
But I am beyond rational sense.
“Hope will give you strength,” Daniel continues. “You must believe. You have to.”
“I’ve seen too much,” I say. “I know too much. I know it’s hopeless. Maria is not immune any mo
re. Not to any recent strain of the Oz virus.”
“I know,” Daniel whispers.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know it’s over. It’s a hopeless situation. We are completely screwed.”
“We still have to run our own tests,” Daniel says. “We have to confirm it. That’s why we need him.”
“And Maria?” I ask.
“Yes. Maria. Kim. The two doctors. They are our targets.”
The Death Squad tried to use Kim and Doctor Hunter as leverage, as bargaining chips, because they are important, because they are wanted, because they are high priorities. This plan did not work out so well for the Death Squad. I remember the Death Squad leader’s words of warning about the ‘company’… about the Evo Agents.
The company is coming. And when they get here…
“And the rest of us?” I ask.
Daniel doesn’t answer me. Because the answer is, the rest of us are expendable.
“Did you kill all the remaining soldiers?” I ask. “Did you kill all the General’s men?”
“No. Not all of them. Some of them escaped back into the depths of the Fortress.”
“What’s stopping them from coming in here right now? What’s stopping them from killing all of us?”
“Nothing is stopping them from coming back here. But I’ve got my men guarding this place. We’re safe.”
“We are not safe. Don’t ever say that.”
“Stay strong, Rebecca. You must have hope.”
He repeats this over and over and over.
Hope.
This is the most important thing apparently.
“You must believe,” he says. “If you lose hope, you will lose your way. You will become broken. I’ve seen it, on the battlefield, deep behind enemy lines. Cut off. No food. No water. No radio. Hardly any ammo. We were surrounded. We were on the run. Just like now.” He pauses, shakes his head. “Except there were no zombies.”
And this is the world we live in now. A life before zombies… and a life after.
“Anyway,” Daniel continues. “We found ourselves in a very similar situation. But a few of the guys had given up. Physically they were able. Physically they were fine. But mentally, spiritually, they were broken. They had lost hope. They would stare off into the distance. Drag their feet. Little things. And it’s the little things that will kill you. A little thing like losing hope.”
“But the Oz virus has spread,” I say. “The whole world is now overrun. This is now a worldwide epidemic. It’s no longer the Australian apocalypse. It’s no longer the secret apocalypse. The cat is out of the bag. The zombie is out of the bag. The plague has taken over. There is no coming back from this. So what good is hope?”
And we are too far gone.
“Hope is everything,” Daniel repeats. “Hope has gotten you this far. And believe me, you have come a long way. You have survived so much, more than anyone I’ve ever met. This is the power of hope. And you have been lucky.”
“What? Lucky? I have been anything but lucky. I have been pushed to the brink. I’ve been tortured for days on end. I have seen so much death.”
I’ve lost my home.
My mother.
I have almost nothing left.
“Yes,” Daniel answers. “You have been lucky. I told you,” he says, motioning with his head towards the others. “This is your family. They are your strength. And you have been lucky. You have been risking your life for months now, in the most hostile place on earth, in the midst of an apocalypse, an extinction level event. You have survived the Oz virus. You have survived monsters and nano-swarms. You have survived in cities overrun with the living dead. You have survived the desert. You have survived in this place, this Fortress. You have all survived. Yes. You are lucky. But sooner or later your luck will run out. Sooner or later you will lose someone close to you. You will lose your family.”
He is telling me I will lose my family. Because it has happened to him. He is telling me this, he is preparing me for this loss, for this heart wrenching, heart breaking, hope-killing loss.
“And if you give up,” he continues. “If you lose hope, if you stop believing or stop fighting, you will lose your entire family. And then you will lose yourself.”
He is speaking from experience. He lost his whole team back on the streets of Sydney. They were like a family to him. They were his family. The team leader, Major Charles Ethan was like a father to Daniel. And they were killed, they were ripped apart in Sydney by a monster.
By the infected.
By the Oz virus and Project Salvation.
He points to Kenji and Jack. Maria and Kim. Big Ben. “Fight for them. Believe in them. Have hope for them. Because they are all you have left. Give them everything. Give them everything you have, because sooner or later…”
He trails off because he doesn’t want to come right out and say ‘sooner or later they will die’.
In front of you.
In your arms.
“Hope will be the only thing that keeps you alive when the worst happens,” he says. “Hope will be the only thing that keeps you going.”
Daniel finishes stitching me up. He covers my wrist and my hand in yellow antibacterial cream. He then wraps the wound in a fresh bandage. He is an excellent field surgeon, better than I think he gives himself credit for. I remember back to when he was hesitant about operating on big Ben, back at the outpost. Ben had a bullet wound next to his heart. I guess that kind of wound would make anyone nervous.
“So what now?” I ask, trying to ignore the nagging thought that one of my friends will die in front of me, or in my arms. Because I’d rather die myself than experience that.
“We wait for an extraction,” Daniel says.
“How long will that take?”
“Not sure. Maybe a day. Maybe less.”
“You’re not sure?”
“If my team doesn’t make it back to base, if we don’t make contact, they’ll send out a recon team. When the recon team gets here, they’ll radio for an extraction.”
“Why can’t we radio for an extraction?”
“Comms are down.”
He sees my head drop, sees my shoulders slump forward.
“Stay strong,” he says for the millionth time. “Believe. Have hope. You will get out of this.”
Maybe, I think. Maybe I will live. Maybe I won’t.
I probably won’t.
There’s no way. The odds are stacked too high.
Sooner or later my luck will run out.
But I know Daniel is right. I must have hope. I must stay strong. And I will fight. Of course I will. I will fight for my friends, for my family. They are all I have left. I will fight to the very end, to my very last breath.
But will it be enough?
Sooner or later you will lose someone…
But who?
Who’s it going to be?
I remember something Ben said to us when we first met him, down in the bank vault of that lonely, isolated country town.
Trust me. We’re all gonna die down here.
I’m starting to think he’s right.
I’m starting to know he is right.
Daniel cuts my zip-tie with his knife and tells me not to do anything stupid.
“Like what?” I ask.
“You know what.”
“Where have you put them?”
He gives me a look. “Why would I tell you that?”
“I’m not going to shoot them. I’m not going to do anything. I just want to know where they are so I can stay as far away from them as possible.”
Daniel thinks it over for a second. “We’ve locked them up in one of the Humvees.”
Automatically my eyes start scanning the rest of the Humvees. But I can’t see them.
We exit the Humvee and one of the other Evo Agents comes running up to us. The Evo Agent is about to speak but then looks at me and then looks at Daniel. He doesn’t want to speak in front of me.
“It’s OK, Parker,” Daniel says.
Parker nods. “Sir, it’s about Miller.”
“What is it?”
“He’s missing,” he says, lowering his voice.
“What do you mean missing?”
“He’s gone. He was patrolling the eastern tunnel. And he… he’s just gone.”
Daniel looks worried. He looks at both the eastern subway tunnel and the western subway tunnel. “No trace at all? Where’s his pack? His equipment? His weapon?”
“All gone. Everything. It’s like he’s just disappeared into thin air.”
“Set up a perimeter,” Daniel says. “Stay in pairs at all times.”
“It can’t be the infected,” I say. “We would’ve heard them. We would’ve seen them. They would’ve attacked the rest of us.”
Parker doesn’t understand Daniel’s order. “Sir? Shouldn’t we look for Miller?”
Daniel doesn’t answer Parker. Instead he says, “We’re stretched too thin. Do we have any EMP weapons?”
There is no point looking for Miller, I think to myself. He has been dragged off. Or he has deserted. But I get the impression that Miller wasn’t the kind of guy to desert his brothers. So this only leaves one option. This only leaves one possible scenario.
A very bad scenario.
“We only have EMP grenades,” Parker answers.
“Make sure everyone is armed,” Daniel says. “We need to close those blast doors. We need to seal this hangar. Get on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yep. There is no point looking for Miller.
“It’s bad, isn’t it,” I say.
Daniel doesn’t answer me.
And his silence says more than he ever could.
Daniel is telling me to stay strong.
He’s telling me to have hope.
But this is easier said than done.
We are already under attack.
We are already dying.
Chapter 2
Daniel tells me to get some rest. He then walks off, over to his men. If I had to guess, I’d say they were planning their next move. Planning for the worst case scenario.
As Daniel walks off, I try once again to find which Humvee Doctor Hunter and the man in the gas mask are locked up in. But I can’t see them. Maybe Daniel lied to me. Maybe he doesn’t trust me not to do anything stupid.