by James Harden
"What is it? What are you doing?" Kenji asked?
"The banging has stopped. The screaming has stopped. I think they’ve gone."
"They must have seen something else to get their attention," Kenji said.
"Probably the other soldiers." I offered.
Kenji put his ear up to the door. He couldn’t hear anything. He opened the door a crack and peeked outside. "They've definitely cleared out."
"Do we make a run for it?" I asked.
"Yeah. We have to. We have no choice."
"Where are we going to go?" Jack asked.
It wasn’t like we had many options. We could run to one of the boats docked in the harbor, or jump in the water and swim for it, or run deeper into the city and choose another building to hide in. But we didn’t even get to discuss those pathetic options because just then something came clinking down the stairwell.
It was tear gas.
"Cover your nose and eyes," Kenji said as he opened the door and scanned up and down the street with his rifle. "Rebecca," he said. "Is the safety switched off on your gun?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I need you to run across the road to that bus stop while I cover you. Once you get to the bus stop, I need you to turn around and cover us as we run across the street."
I didn't have time to argue so I just ran. I ran as fast as I could with my head down and my shoulders hunched forward. I honestly thought I was going to get shot in the back but the street outside the building was completely deserted. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe I was expecting the street to be choked full of infected people. I at least expected to see some helicopters hovering around. But there were no choppers and no jets. No bullet tearing into my back from an unseen sniper.
I made it to the bus stop. I turned around and waved the others forward. I looked up and down the street but there was nothing.
Kenji made it to me first. Jack was a little slower because he was carrying his sister.
"Where are the soldiers?" I asked Kenji. "Why are there no helicopters?"
Kenji shook his head as he continued to scan the streets. "I don't know. I guess it's essentially a rescue mission. They came for Maria. No need for the big guns."
"Or maybe their resources are stretched too thin," I said. "Or maybe they're clearing out to drop a nuclear bomb or something?"
Either way it made it a lot easier to get across the road. But just when we thought we were in the clear, another tank came rolling around the corner. It moved slowly, like a giant mechanical beast. It stopped abruptly, its main gun swiveled around towards us. We all dived behind the bus stop. We knew it wouldn't provide much cover but it was better than nothing. The gun kept moving. It pointed down the street, back towards the entrance of the casino. The tank seemed to wait there for a few seconds before it fired a few rounds. The shells exploded, causing huge potholes and craters in the road and on the side of the casino building.
"What are they firing at?"
Before anyone answered I could see for myself. The infected came running through the smoke as the tank rolled towards them and fired some more rounds. Decomposing bodies exploded, as the shells from the tank’s massive gun tore into the horde. It was amazing how they had absolutely no regard for their own safety, how they didn’t feel pain, how even when they had their legs blown off they were still clawing their way forward.
The soldiers who were chasing us appeared in the door way of the emergency exit. They spotted us immediately. They were about to start shooting but then they saw the massive horde of infected people charging towards them and the tank.
"Time to go!" Kenji said. "Head towards the harbor!"
Kenji provided a couple rounds of covering fire as we ran. I looked over my shoulder and saw two of them men in black fall to the ground. The rest of them were taking cover behind the tank.
We made it down to the harbor. I sprinted along the nearest jetty.
"We might be able to get away in one of those boats!"
"Pick one!" Jack shouted. "Preferably a fast one."
As we ran closer I could see we didn't have much of a choice. Most of them had been badly damaged or completely destroyed by the missiles from yesterday.
We kept running, but we couldn’t find a boat.
"We’ll have to try on the other side of the harbor!" I shouted.
We had to run back across the footbridge that we had swam underneath yesterday. It was a distance of about four hundred meters. But when you’re being chased by people with guns who want to shoot you and other people who want to eat you it felt a lot further.
When we got to the other side I jumped in the nearest boat that had survived all the carnage. It was only small. But it was sleek and pointy. So it had to be fast. Plus it had two motors on the back of it. And I figured two motors were better than one.
As I untied the rope from the jetty so we could cast off I saw something in the water. At first I thought it was garbage floating on the surface. But then I realized what it was. There were corpses in the water, hundreds if not thousands. The water was full of them and some of them were moving.
I was about to throw up.
But Kenji yelled at us to jump in the boat and take cover. There was no time to be sick. I threw the rifle into the boat and jumped in and hid behind the driver’s seat. Jack dived in the back as he held on to Kim and covered her with his body. A second later a barrage of bullets smashed into the jetty and the surrounding boats.
I crawled over to Jack, afraid to stand up because I didn't want to get my head blown off. "Is Kim all right," I asked.
"I think she's unconscious. She's losing too much blood," he said as he took his shirt off and tied it around Kim's arm. He then took his belt off from his jeans and tied that around as well to try and stop the bleeding.
Kenji jumped in the boat with us. He moved over to the driver’s seat. "Oh no," he said. "No, no, no!"
"What is it?"
"We don't have any keys!"
I don’t know why we didn’t think of keys. Maybe because we were being shot at with machine guns we weren’t thinking straight. Or maybe because our original plan involved stealth it just completely skipped our minds. But this was no row boat or canoe. Judging by the design; it was a high performance speed machine. And it needed a freakin key to turn its engine.
"Wait, this is a Marina," Jack said.
"So?"
"So, it’s basically a car park for boats. Which means the owners would need to leave a set of keys here with the Marina operators in case the operators needed to move the boats for whatever reason."
"Where would they keep them?" Kenji asked as he looked through the scope on the rifle back towards the footbridge.
"I don’t know. Maybe in an office? Maybe in a lock box of some sort on the actual jetty?"
I was looking up at the footbridge, right where Kenji was looking with his scope. There was a glint of light; something caught the sun’s reflection. Kenji fired a single shot from his rifle. A second later a man in black fell over the edge of the bridge into the water below.
"I’ll go look for them," Jack said. "You guys keep them back for as long as you can."
"But there would have to be fifty or more boats here! You’ll never find it." I said.
"If I can’t find them then we’ll have to retreat further into the city."
Moving further into the city did not sound like a good idea. Who knows how many infected would be waiting in there?
Kenji fired a few more rounds at the footbridge. "Hurry! We don’t have long."
"Give me one minute," he said as he leapt back out of the boat "Rebecca, what’s the name of the boat?" Jack asked me. "Can you see a logo or brand name or anything?"
I looked but couldn’t see a logo. "No. But the word, ‘fearless’ is written everywhere."
With that bit of information Jack ran back along the jetty.
Kenji told me to pick up the other rifle and start shooting at the footbridge. "Start shooting," he said
. "It doesn’t matter if you hit anything but they have to know that we’re firing on them."
I did exactly what he said. I don’t if I shot anyone, I probably didn’t but it seemed to be working. I guess the men in black where sitting back, waiting for us to run out of ammunition.
Less than a minute later Jack landed back in the boat with a set of keys in his hand.
"Where did you find them?" Kenji asked.
"They were all hanging up together at the other end of the Marina."
"How do you know they’re the right keys?"
"Because they’re they only ones that say ‘fearless’ on them."
"OK, let’s not waste anymore time. Fire it up," Kenji said as he moved on to the jetty. He untied the rope and pushed the boat away from the wooden supports.
As the boat began to drift away from the Marina the pursuing soldiers regrouped on the footbridge. Some of them had even made it on to our side of the harbor. They were beginning to surround us.
"Jack, do you know how to drive this thing?" Kenji asked
"Yeah. I got it."
"Good," he said as he took cover behind the wreckage of another boat. "Go as fast as you can back out towards the main harbor."
We started to move away from the jetty, further and further. The men in black opened fire once more. Bullets tore through the water and the wooden jetty.
Kenji waited. It looked like he was talking to himself. After about a two second count he returned fire.
I suddenly realized that he didn’t intend on coming with us.
"Kenji! What are you doing?"
"Rebecca!" he called out while taking cover. "Stay down!"
"Come on, you can make it! You have to make it. Jump!"
But he didn’t budge. He simply reloaded. The soldiers intensified their shooting. Kenji remained calm. He finished reloading and waited. When the shooting stopped, Kenji returned fire and took out three more men in black.
I was screaming and yelling at Kenji to get in the boat. I think I was about to jump overboard but Jack grabbed me and wrestled me on to the floor. He told me that it would be all right. He told me as soon as we were clear Kenji would get on another boat and come after us.
But I knew he was lying, there's no way Kenji could catch up with us. This was the last boat. It took me a few minutes but I finally came to terms with what he was doing. He was saving us. He was sacrificing himself.
I had to look away. It was too painful to watch him on that jetty all by himself, with ruthless, mercenary soldiers and an unstoppable plague closing in all around him.
Jack turned the key in the ignition and the motor roared to life. He pushed the throttle to the limit and I was thrown backwards. The nose of the boat pointed to the sky as we accelerated to top speed. I regained my balance and brushed my hair out of my face. The boat we had chosen was definitely fast. We seemed to skim along the top of the water; the city was a blur as we passed it by. In a matter of seconds we turned out of Darling Harbor and headed for the ruins of the bridge.
Chapter 37
I yelled at Jack, asking him if we should be going the other way, if we should be going inland instead of out to sea but he couldn’t hear me over the engine and the wind.
I looked up ahead to see if there were any aircraft carriers or destroyers anchored in the harbor. But there was nothing. We had the entire harbor to ourselves. Even the skies were clear. There were no helicopters of death, no jets. The only birds of prey were two sea eagles circling high above. It looked like the military had fallen back completely. This was good news for our getaway but it could also mean they were getting ready to drop a nuclear bomb. Kenji said they would do it if they had no other choice, if they couldn’t control the spread of infection. He said they’d already used nukes at Woomera.
We passed underneath the destroyed remains of the bridge. The site of it took my breath away because it looked so surreal and I felt like I should’ve died there.
Thankfully we moved on quickly. We must have been travelling close to a hundred miles an hour. I started to relax a little the closer we got to the open sea even though I wasn’t really sure where we’d go. I thought we should at least get out of Sydney harbor, out past Sydney heads. We could move up the coast, avoiding major cities, avoiding the military. It would take a miracle.
We hadn’t even made it to the heads when Jack started talking to himself.
"I need to save her," he said. "I have to go back for her. I have to. I can’t leave. I can’t let them touch her."
"What are you talking about?"
"He needs me. He doesn’t know his way around the city. He needs me. I know the city. I can help him."
Jack asked me if I could drive the boat. "All you have to do is keep the throttle down and steer. It’s just like steering a car."
"What? What are you doing? I can’t steer! I don’t even have my driver’s license!"
"I have to go back for her," he said as he slowed the boat.
I tried to stop him but he was too strong. He pushed me back and told me not to come after him. He told me to get his sister to safety. Get her fixed.
Kim was lying unconscious on the back seat. She had been passed out for awhile now. But at least Jack’s make shift bandaged had stopped the bleeding from the bullet wound.
"I’m trusting you with her life," he said.
"Bastard!"
He dived out of the boat and started swimming. Strong powerful shoulders pumped through the water. He was heading straight back into the apocalypse. I watched him until I couldn’t see him anymore.
Epilogue
I can’t even really remember what happened next. Maybe it’s because I was essentially alone. I think I started to go a little crazy. Like Norman Bates said in the movie, Psycho, ‘We all go a little mad sometimes’. And being alone at sea is enough to drive anyone mad.
We travelled up the coast. I was too scared to go to shore. We eventually ran out of fuel so we floated with the current for awhile. I found some plastic oars in the storage compartment of the boat so I started paddling.
I was tempted to row to shore a few times to find help, or at least find drinkable water but all up the coast, smoke was drifting into the air. It was an all too familiar sign of death and destruction.
I got tired quickly. I hadn't eaten much the past couple of days. I tried to drop anchor but it didn't reach the ocean floor. We must’ve drifted further out then I'd thought. So we floated. We were lucky that the weather was fine. The swells were calm and there was no wind, no rain.
Eventually we were picked up by a coal ship. They wouldn't let us on board because they were too scared that we were infected. I couldn’t blame them. I would’ve done the same thing.
But lucky for us they did throw us a rope so they could tow us along. I guess that was a miracle in itself. They even dropped food and water down to us.
Kim had been drifting in and out of consciousness. And whenever she did wake all she would ask for was water. I didn’t think about it at the time but there’s no doubt we would’ve been close to death by dehydration.
We finally made it back to dry ground. The coal ship had taken us to New Zealand because they had set up a quarantine facility for survivors. We were the only ones there.
They took Kim away for emergency surgery. Apparently her arm had gotten pretty bad.
I was isolated. I’m not sure what they did with Kim, but I was stripped naked and hosed down. They rinsed and repeated. They shaved my head, took blood samples.
After a week in solitary confinement they gave me the all clear and I was extradited back to America. I was screaming before I got on the plane. I was demanding to know where Kim was. What had they done with her? But they said she was still in quarantine. They said because she had an open wound she would be in there a lot longer. I had convinced myself that they were lying to me. I was so angry. They ended up giving me an injection of something to calm me down for the flight.
As soon as I stepped off the plane at
LAX I was pounced on by the media. The first thing that struck me was how little the rest of the world knew about what had happened. We lived in the information age. The age of satellite television, the internet, social networking and yet they barely knew the half of it.
Reporters and journalists shoved cameras and microphones in my face as I was rushed through the airport.
"Are the rumors true? Is there really a killer virus? Are people really coming back from the dead? Are people really turning into zombies?"
I don't know if they were zombies but I guess it was just easier to call them that. "Yeah," I said. "It was messed up."
"And yet somehow you survived. The only survivor of the entire Australian population."
"Yeah," I said because I was already starting to distance myself from the others and I honestly thought that Kim had died in New Zealand.
"How did you do it? What was it like knowing you couldn’t leave? Knowing there was no outside help allowed to come in?"
"It was awful," I said. "The most terrifying experience of my life."
The media storm was intense but I was glad for it. It meant that the military or whoever was trying to cover up the whole incident couldn't just come and take me away and do whatever they wanted to do. It also meant that I could tell the world what had happened down there.
I don’t know how long I’d locked myself in the bathroom for. I tend to lose track of time a lot now.
They were banging on the door.
"Rebecca, please let us in! We have something to tell you."
I think it’s the producer.
I look at the notepad in my lap. It’s completely full. Every page. The entire side of my right hand is covered in black ink.
"I don’t think I can do the interview," I say.
"Wait. Before you make any rash decisions I think you should listen to this."
She plays a recording through the bathroom door. It sends shivers down my spine. I hold my breath.
It was Kenji.
"Mayday! Mayday! If anyone is out there, we are survivors of the Oz Virus. We are not infected. Repeat, we are not infected. We are trapped in the middle of Sydney. We have a survivor here who has shown immunity to the virus. She may hold the key to a cure."