I charged it.
My actions seemed to momentarily catch it off guard. The whole thing seemed to double over itself as I ran toward it. Sort of like a giant, black wave.
I held my hands out as I ran into the smoke, covering my face, holding my breath. Everything became dark and distorted. My vision was obscured, like being in a dust storm again. I closed my eyes as tight as I could. I felt pin pricks on my skin, tiny little cuts, like razor blades.
A split second later I broke free, light returned to my world. I could see the harpoons directly in front of me.
I sprinted, passing through them, leaning forward at the last second like an Olympic runner crossing the finish line. "NOW!" I shouted.
As soon as I crossed the finish line, as soon as I passed through the harpoons, I felt something grab my ankle. I tripped over and hit the ground. But instead of skidding forward. I was dragged backwards.
The thing, the black smoke, the nano-swarm, it had me. My whole foot was engulfed in blackness. Again, my skin felt like it was being sliced with razor blades.
It was dragging me back into the abyss, like it had done with Ed, when it had dragged him into the alley. Just before the swarm swallowed me whole , I heard a sound. A whoosh crack. And then I felt the impact of the harpoon through the road. It actually lifted me clear off the ground.
The green lights on the harpoons turned red.
A pulsing bright flash sent me momentarily blind. The nano-swarm collapsed on the road covering the surrounding buildings, the sidewalk and me in black dust.
CHAPTER 32
I can’t really remember what happened next. I couldn’t really see. My vision had been reduced to a small little, circle. My hearing was gone.
I was coughing uncontrollably. I coughed so hard, my stomach muscles all cramped up at the same time. I probably would’ve thrown up if there was anything in my stomach. Mentally, I couldn’t think straight. It was like I was concussed or something.
I could see shapes moving, running towards me. It was the guys. Daniel. Kenji. And Jack.
All of a sudden, sound returned to the world.
"You’re one brave little lady." It was Ben.
He must’ve been standing right next to me. I couldn’t see him though. My vision was a blur.
He started patting me down. At first I thought he was patting me on the back trying to get me to stop coughing. But then I realized he was brushing the black dust off me. The remnants of the nano-swarm.
The rest of it was spread over the road and the sidewalk. At that moment it looked like harmless black dust. Like someone had emptied a massive, industrial sized vacuum cleaner in the middle of the road.
"Wait," I coughed. "You said this was only a temporary solution."
"That’s right," Ben answered.
"So there’s a chance the nano-bots could come back online or whatever and reform."
"Yeah."
"How long do we have?"
"I’m not sure. But I don’t want to hang around to find out."
"Yeah, me neither."
"We need to go now."
I tried to stand but I couldn’t. Every single muscled ached like I’d been beaten with a baseball bat.
Ben picked me up and carried me.
We found a car at the rear of the church. It was an old station wagon. It looked like it hadn’t been used in awhile. It was covered in red dust.
Daniel popped the hood and immediately began hot wiring the car. But he couldn’t get it going.
Ben sat me down in the back seat and then pushed Daniel out of the way. "Here let me try. Hotwired a million of these bad boys. Worth a fortune in chopped up parts."
"Should we try raid the supermarket warehouse they mentioned?" Kenji asked. "I think that’s where they were getting their food and water from."
"Yeah that’s probably a good idea," Daniel said.
"No," Ben answered. "We need to go now."
The engine finally ticked over, roaring to life.
"I agree," Maria said as she jumped in the car next to me. "I don’t want to spend any more time here."
"We can’t just drive off into the desert," Kenji said.
Ben sat in the front seat. "I’ll drive. I know the roads."
"But where the hell are we going?"
"We’re going to the Fortress."
Jack and Kenji jumped in the back as well. Daniel was up front.
"What about guns?" Jack asked. "I don’t like the idea of being unarmed."
Ben held up a hand gun and a shotgun. "This is it. The priest’s men, the one’s that got away, they took the rest of them."
"I think we should go and look for them," Jack said.
Ben shook his head. "We can’t stay here. It’s not safe. But don’t worry. Once we get to the Fortress we won’t need guns."
And that was the end of the discussion. The guys were satisfied with Ben’s answer. The Fortress was the best place to go.
It was a safe place. A refuge.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Ben wasn’t the right guy to trust. Sure he had saved my life, but I got the sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t stable. To make matters worse, he we was beast of a man. At least seven foot tall. He had arms like freakin tree trunks for crying out loud. A Body that was carved out of stone, a face only a mother could love. A mother who was partially blind. And after I witnessed his strength first hand when he took down those, mutated monsters, I knew that if he wanted to, if he decided that he’d had enough of us, he could kill us all. Snap us in half like we were twigs.
Daniel wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not even Kenji with all his martial arts training.
The messed up thing was we needed him.
We needed to get to the Fortress. We needed to rest up. Drink. Eat.
At that point I was just glad to be sitting down in the back of a car. I was glad to be chauffeured around the desert instead of running for my life. Every single muscle in my body ached. My skin felt itchy. It hurt to breathe.
Maria put her arm around me. I think she said thanks but I couldn’t be sure. At that point I had begun to pass out. My last thought was that I had cheated death again. And that death probably wouldn’t keep letting that happen. Sooner or later he would come for us, swinging his scythe. Sooner or later he would collect us all in one foul swoop.
CHAPTER 33
I’m not sure when, but at some point during the drive I completely passed out. I had this weird dream where the car we were driving was a hearse. I hoped it wasn’t a premonition.
The thing that woke me was the squeaking noise of the brakes and Ben hitting the steering wheel. The force of the blow shook the whole car.
We lifted the hood to see what was going on. This time there was a whole lot of steam coming from the engine.
"It’s dead," Ben said. "Engines over heated. Looks, like we’re walking from here."
"How far is the Fortress?" Daniel asked.
"Too far. We’d never make it. Not without water."
We had driven all through the night. It was early morning now. And we still weren’t close. That was a disheartening fact. And the water, I thought to myself. From the general store. I guess with everything that had happened, I’d completely forgot about it.
"Then what the hell are we supposed to do?" Jack asked with a strain in his voice.
"There's gotta be a town close by, right?" Maria offered.
Ben nodded. "Yeah there is. But it's completely overrun with infected."
"Well, we don't have a choice."
"No," Jack said. "The last time we tried to raid a town that was overrun, we nearly died. We are not doing that again. No way."
"What else are we going to do?" I asked.
"There's an outpost," Ben said. "About a day's walk from here."
"Outpost?" Kenji asked.
"Yeah. The Fortress is the main facility in this section. There are smaller outposts all over. They’re isolated from one another."
"How many?"
"Not sure. Five others that I know of. But they’ve all been compromised."
"Compromised?" Daniel asked. "How?"
"The Oz virus. And the nano-swarms."
"But this outpost is still operational, right?"
"The last I heard it was."
"So how has this one survived? How has the Fortress survived?"
"Force field," Ben answered. "Keeps the nano-swarms out. They were the only ones."
"The only ones? Why? Why not the others?"
"The other facilities didn’t get their force fields set up in time. I’m guessing they didn’t really know what was going on until it was too late."
"Which way to the outpost?" Kenji asked.
"South-East. It's in the complete opposite direction to the Fortress."
"So we’re gonna backtrack?" Jack said.
"We don't really have a choice," Kenji pointed out. "We're in no man's land. We have no water, no food. We have to try."
"The last time we deviated off course we nearly died," Jack argued. "We were kidnapped and drugged. You two," he said pointing to me and Maria, "were nearly fed to a freakin monster."
"That was unforeseen," Daniel answered. "No one could’ve predicted that the priest and those people were all crazy."
"Well, we should’ve. We should’ve been more careful."
"What the hell were we supposed to do?" Daniel said. "We were out of food. Nearly out of water. We had to check the towns for supplies."
"And in the process we risked Maria. Have you all forgotten what our mission is? It’s not supplies. It’s Maria. She is all that matters."
"I know that," Daniel said. "Believe me, I know."
"Jack, come on," Maria said. "It was no one’s fault."
"Yeah it was," Jack continued. "You guys are supposed to be highly trained soldiers. Kenji, you’re a killer. A stone cold killer. You could’ve taken out those guys when they came up to the house. You could’ve shot them all between the eyes before they even knew what was going on. And you," he said, pointing at Daniel. "Special Forces? I don’t think so. No wonder the rest of your team didn’t make it."
"Jack that’s enough!" Maria shouted.
Daniel stepped forward and grabbed Jack by the shirt. He raised his arm, seconds away from punching Jack right in the jaw. Which he totally deserved.
But Daniel didn’t throw the punch.
Both guys were exhausted. Too weary to fight. Daniel knew it. He let go of Jack and pushed him away.
"Look, we’re on the edge here," Daniel said calmly. "The very edge. We’re starving and dehydrated. I understand you’re upset. I understand you’re angry. Believe me, I do."
"Do you?" Jack said. "Then you understand why back tracking is the worst idea ever. It’s a whole day in the complete opposite direction to the Fortress, the complete opposite direction to your camp. We’re hundreds of miles away from the Nullabor plains. We need to keep moving. We need to keep walking. One foot after the after. That’s the only way we’re gonna make it. Hopefully we’ll get lucky and find food and water along the way. Maybe we’ll find a car or bikes. Hell, I’ll take a skateboard at this point."
"Jack, we’re no good without water. We’re dead without it." Kenji being all Zen, the voice of reason. "We need to get to the outpost. Rest. Recover."
Jack took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Look, I knew it was gonna be hard. No one ever said it was going to be easy. I get that. But if we go to this outpost or whatever, we waste a day. And then it’s one more day just to get back to this point. Two days wasted. And for what? We don’t even know what’s at this outpost. It could be overrun. It could be abandoned."
Maria stepped forward and put her arm around Jack but he brushed her off. I’ve always seen Jack as an easy going kind of guy. I guess he was back before the world went to hell. I guess dealing with school and teachers and exams and parents wasn’t that big of a deal compared to this.
But the one thing that was really making Jack lose his mind, the one thing that was killing him, was his love for Maria. And now that she needed to be protected at all costs, it was putting Jack on edge. And having her come so close to death had caused him to snap.
"Jack, we have to go," Maria said. "We need to rest. We need food and water. I need food and water. You need food and water. Can’t you see how you’re acting? What do you want us to do? Do you want us to split up? We can’t split up. We’re stronger together. We all need each other. We can’t fight like this."
Jack turned away from the group and looked to the west. His hands were on his head. He took another couple of deep breaths. It looked like he wanted to pull his hair out. He had a look of anguish on his face that I’d never seen before. He wanted to get to Daniel’s camp so badly. He wanted to get Maria out of here. I can understand that. I think we could all understand that.
"Fine," Jack finally said. "We go to the outpost. We backtrack."
CHAPTER 34
We trekked about thirty miles. Maybe more. We followed a small road for awhile. But then seemingly in the middle of nowhere we turned off the road and followed a dirt track for another few miles.
I wondered how Ben knew where we were going. He didn’t have a map. No GPS. No compass. And now we weren’t even following a road. We were literally walking off into the desert. A huge, never-ending desert. We were far away from any roads or dirt tracks. Our lives were in Ben’s hands.
The reality? Ben could’ve been leading us out into the desert to our deaths. He could’ve been leading us all the way out here just to butcher us. Or make us dig our own graves and bury us alive.
I shook my head. I had to stop thinking like that.
Up ahead, there appeared to be an ancient river bed. Ben said it would lead us to the outpost.
We walked in silence. We were all exhausted. Everyone lost in their own thoughts.
Were we doing the right thing?
Could we trust Ben?
Each step took us further away from our destination, from safety.
Ben was out in front. I had been so lost in my own thoughts, scaring myself with my own crazy imagination that I hadn’t even noticed that Ben was hunched over as he walked, breathing hard, blood dripping down his shirt.
I walked up next to him. "Hey, are you all right?"
He stopped, ignoring my question and held his hand up for everyone to stop. "We’re here."
The river bed sloped downwards between a pile of massive boulders. I’m guessing these rocks would’ve caused rapids in the river once. Or maybe even a waterfall in some places. A very long time ago.
Below us was a vast plain.
Kenji and Daniel moved ahead slightly and climbed over the rocks so they could get a look.
"Well, the good news is that we’re finally here," Kenji said.
"What’s the bad news?" I asked.
I looked at Daniel. He was shaking his head, a look of disappointment on his face.
"Well? What’s the bad news," I asked as I scrambled forward over the rocks so I could have a look.
"It’s completely surrounded by the infected," Kenji answered.
"Oh no," Maria said. "How? All the way out here? There’s no towns? There’s nothing. Where did they come from?"
The outpost had two main buildings. They were rectangular in shape. They were connected by an enclosed walkway about fifty feet in length. This walkway appeared to be damaged. It seemed to be bent slightly, almost as if it had been damaged by an earthquake.
Each building was protected by two, twenty foot chain link fences, topped with razor wire and a twenty foot inner wall. The buildings were also protected by gun towers, one at each corner. Placed around the outer-perimeter fences were three Humvees and one tank. They were spaced evenly apart, facing outwards, towards the desert. Each vehicle had a satellite dish attached to its roof.
One thing was obvious; this was a maximum security facility. Designed to keep everybody on the outside.
And at that moment, the infected had it
completely surrounded. They had even knocked over the perimeter fences in certain areas.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"Military research," Ben said. "Standard design. You’ve got a research facility and a military facility. They keep them in separate buildings just in case there’s an outbreak or any contamination issues."
"Outbreak?"
"Yeah. In the research facility, they’re working with everything from the Oz virus, to the Ebola virus. Swine flu. Bird flu. SARS. Small pox. Everything. They need to keep that part separated."
I could see his point.
Maria looked worried. "Where did they all come from?"
"We're in the Woomera military testing zone." Kenji whispered.
"What? We're nowhere near Woomera," Jack said. "If we were, we wouldn't be breathing on account of all the nuclear fallout."
"The testing zone," Kenji continued "It was a huge area. It stretched out across half the outback. It was top secret."
"So?"
"They had multiple testing sites within the area. They tested on refugees, illegal immigrants, people smugglers. They had secret, hidden refugee camps out here. I'm not sure how many. I only saw one of them."
"Secret refugee camps?" Ben asked. "Out here?"
"Yeah. It was awful. It was basically a huge shanty town. Home to thousands of refugees. I guess they used them like farms. The refugees were like cattle."
Maria moved away from us. "I think I’m going to be sick."
"And so now the refugees, they’re all infected?" I said.
Kenji nodded. "I'm guessing these outposts and the Fortress are all part of it somehow."
"There are at least six of these outposts that I know of," Ben said. "The Fortress is the main, central facility."
"So what the hell do we do now?" Jack said, the strain of fear returning to his voice. "We're stuck. No water. In the middle of nowhere. Three days walk from the Fortress. From anywhere!"
"I was hoping somebody was still home," Ben said. "Looks like that was just wishful thinking."
Where The Dead Men Lie (The Secret Apocalypse) Page 16