by James Harden
“Why?”
“Because. They took from me. They ...” again he trailed off. “Come on!”
He dropped the piece of skin and started kicking the pole. “Come on!”
Suddenly a light on top of the metal pole turned green.
The ground began to shake.
And then it began to sink.
Is sink the right word? Maybe not. It was like the whole ground began to lower. Descend.
The desert floor gave way.
It was like a massive elevator platform.
It was an entry point into the Fortress.
“It worked,” Ben said, relieved. “We’re in.”
Chapter 11
I couldn’t get over the size of this platform. It was massive.
“This is massive,” I said in complete shock.
“Vehicle entry point,” Ben said. “Tanks. Humvees. Transport vehicles. Aircraft. Drones. Everything.”
The desert floor continued to give way, descending slowly. It was a large, rectangular area. Bigger than a football field. Bigger than several football fields. It was like the ground, the entire desert was sinking. How far down did we go? I’m not sure. Hundreds of feet. Maybe deeper.
“So where does this entrance lead?” I asked as we continued to go deeper, as the sky continued to shrink.
“Vehicle storage hangar. It’s connected to the rest of the facility via a subway tunnel. It should lead directly to the military head quarters.”
“We have to get into that tunnel. We have to get Maria.”
“You still hell bent on saving the world?”
“Yeah. If you had a chance to help, wouldn’t you?”
“You still think you have a chance?”
“Yeah. I do. Well, sort of. What are you even doing back here if you’re not going to help?”
He looked at his wrist again. It was red and inflamed. “Like I said, they took something from me, a part of me. They took my freedom. They took it without asking. I want my revenge.”
“Who did that to you?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. Someone who knew.”
“We found someone at the outpost,” I said. “Apparently he works for the Red Cross. Or maybe he was working for the military. I can’t remember what he said. But he performed surgery on you. He cut a bullet out of your chest and stitched you up.”
Ben felt the wound that was just to the left of his heart.
“He was pretty amazing,” I continued.” He…”
Ben held his hand up, cutting me off, as the platform came to a stop. We had arrived. Ben had a look of concentration on his face.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “We don’t know who or what is down here.”
We had been lowered into what looked like a giant underground airplane hangar. Military vehicles were parked everywhere. There were Humvees. Tanks. Transport vehicles. Aircraft. Jets. A10 Warthogs. Smaller planes that had to be the unmanned drones. The Predator drones. Choppers as well. Weirdly, there was also a row of X-wings. The experimental hypersonic jet that Daniel had flown out here. Their distinctive black arrow head shape looked out of place amongst the more robust designs of the other vehicles.
The row of tanks closest to us were covered in red dust from the desert. Their tracks were caked with red dirt.
“At least we know where the tanks went,” I said.
“Something is wrong,” Ben whispered.
“What is it?”
Ben pointed to a large circular door. It was half open.
“In there. The doorway. Leads into the tunnels.”
“That’s a good thing, right? That’s where we’ll find Maria. The trapdoor, the ladder she climbed down, that’s where it leads, right?”
“If there was a Code Black issued, if there was a Lockdown, they would’ve sealed that entry point.”
“So why is it open?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
A voice, calm and soothing said, "Please disembark platform.”
We moved into the hangar. Dust from the desert covered the smooth concrete floor. The tanks that we had been following were all parked neatly side by side.
“So, if we move into that tunnel,” I said. “We should be able to find Maria. She couldn’t be too far.”
Ben shook his head. “Something is wrong,” he repeated.
“But that’s where we’ll find her, right? In the tunnel?”
“Yeah.”
We moved closer to the tanks. It was then we noticed they were not only covered in red dust from the desert, but black dust as well.
I looked at Ben. He was looking at the circular doorway, but his eyes were barely open. He was slouched over. His left arm was close to his body, like he had it in a sling.
"Nano-swarm?” I asked him, referring to the black dust.
He nodded.
Some of the tanks had holes in their armor. Ditto for the choppers and the Humvees. Again, I got the impression that the armor, the metal had been eaten by moths or caterpillars or something.
"The metal looks like Swiss cheese,” I said.
Again, Ben nodded.
“What did this? What’s going on?"
“They're feeding,” he answered.
“What?”
“The nano-swarms. They feed on metal. Break it down at the molecular level. Use it to build and grow. Fuel for their manufacturing process.” Ben shook his head. “This is bad. You should turn back now. You should run. It’s not safe here.”
“What?”
“Turn back. Go. Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving. Not without Maria. Not without my friends.”
“Your friends?”
I caught Ben up on what had happened, on Jack running away, looking for his sister. “We saw Kim, back in a small country town about one hundred miles south of here. She was with Doctor Hunter. Working with Doctor Hunter. They had found Jack. And they took him prisoner. I think.”
“Who is Kim?” Ben asked.
“Jack’s sister.”
“I don’t see the problem here.”
“It’s hard to explain. But that man she was with. Doctor Hunter. He’s bad news. He’s one of the people responsible for the outbreak. For everything. And he will stop at nothing to fix what he’s done. Back in Sydney, at the hospital, he tied us up. He took us down to the morgue. He was about to put us under and harvest our organs. Turn us into a science experiment for his research. We tried to tell him that we weren’t infected. But he wouldn’t listen. We were nearly butchered, murdered by this guy.”
“So why was he with Jack’s sister?” Ben asked. “What the hell is going on? Why did they take Jack? It sounds like Kim found her brother. Took him in. Saved him from a lonely death in the desert.”
I shook my head. “No. Something is wrong. I don’t know what. But I’m going to find out.”
“You prepared to risk your life for your friend’s life?” he asked, pointing to the subway tunnel, to the massive circular door. “You see that tunnel? It descends miles below the earth’s surface. Deep underground. You prepared to go down there? In the dark? You prepared to die?”
“Yeah. I am.”
I was talking tough because there wasn’t much else I could do at that point except fake it.
The truth? I was terrified. I had no idea at the time, but the crazy soldier; he was just a preview of the madness and the horror that was waiting for me, and for us, waiting down there in the dark of the Fortress. If I had known that, I might have turned around. Might have turned a gun on myself.
Would my friends have blamed me?
I doubt it.
But of course there was no way I was turning back.
I was a girl on a mission.
I had come this far.
So I was going down into the Fortress.
Down into hell.
I pointed to the tunnel, to the circular doorway. “If that’s where we’ll find Maria, then that’s where we need to go. Right now. Is this the only entry p
oint? Is that the only tunnel in this area?”
“Slow down,” Ben said. “We need to be careful. You go running off into the dark and you will get yourself killed. This place is bigger than Manhattan. Bigger than most major cities. And General Spears is not someone you want to mess with. I've only met the General a couple of times, but believe me; you would not want to make an enemy of him. He was determined to win this thing. To right the ship. Right every wrong. He took the losses of life, the outbreaks, and all the containment failures as his own personal failures. Some were saying the pressure was starting to get to him. Some say he was starting to lose it. About a month ago, civilians were banned from all military areas. The paranoia hit. Civilians were separated. We were isolated. People were getting scared. More rumors about death squads. And massacres. You know, in World War Two, in Auschwitz, in the concentration camps, the extermination camps, the prisoners, they didn’t know they were being led into gas chambers. Not at first. And those that did, those who had that cold, sinking, awful feeling in their gut, they ignored it. They were in denial. The truth, the reality was too horrifying. When the General isolated the civilians, kept them locked up in the residential area, I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. That's why I took that last job. I got my team together. The four of us. I wanted to take more. But I couldn’t. A few of my regular team didn't want to go. The scavenger hunts were becoming more and more dangerous. There were more infected. Less things to scavenge. But I managed to convince them. When we finally got outside, when we were clear of the Fortress and the surveillance drones, I told them what I thought was going on. I told them I thought the General was becoming paranoid. A threat. I told them we shouldn't go back. They agreed. That's why we were raiding the town of Hunter. We knew it might’ve been compromised. But we needed extra supplies if we wanted to get away clean. To get away from the Fortress and the teams of Special Forces soldiers the General has at his disposal. We gambled. We knew the risk. We lost.”
I had to keep reminding myself that Ben had been through just as much adversity as we’d been through. It was a miracle that either one of us had survived this long.
“But remember,” he continued. “We are on his turf now. This is his domain. So we have to be careful.”
“All right,” I said. “We’ll be careful. But the ladder that Maria climbed down, it’s gotta be close by, right?”
“I think it was a maintenance access point,” Ben answered. “It should lead into the subway tunnel.”
“Where the hell is that?”
Again, he pointed towards the massive circular door. “Through there. Subway tunnel leads all the way to the inner-sanctum. To the military and residential and research facilities.”
“OK, let’s go.”
“Hold on there. We need weapons. Guns. EMP weapons.”
“EMP weapons? Don’t tell me there are goddamn nano-swarms down here?”
“Don’t know. But we have to be prepared for the worst. We don’t want to be trapped down here, face to face with a nano-swarm with no way of defending ourselves. You saw what it did to the priest’s men.”
Yeah, I did. It took their feet out from under them and strangled them and choked them to death. It filled their lungs with black nano-particles or whatever. I remember the feeling and the pain after I ran right through the middle of a swarm. It was like razor blades on my skin. My throat was on fire.
Ben had a good point about being prepared.
“So what now?” I asked.
“We need supplies. We need weapons. Ammo.”
There had to be some guns down here somewhere, I thought. But in the dark, even with the light from above, from the desert, we couldn’t see very far. The hangar was huge. We couldn’t see where it started or where it ended.
“Maybe we should look for some medical supplies as well,” I suggested. “Get you patched up.”
“No point. I need an ICU. Not a patch up. Let’s just get some guns, maybe a few EMP grenades, and get the hell out of here.”
Ben put his hand against the hood of an armored transport.
“What is it?”
“Still warm.”
“What?”
“Tank is still warm. Means it’s been outside recently.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Should be loaded up.”
He moved to the rear of the tank and opened the hatch slightly. The hatch made a loud squeaking noise. The screech pierced through the air and echoed throughout the hangar.
He stopped and we listened to see if the noise had attracted any attention.
Nothing. Silence.
The hangar appeared to be abandoned.
Ben was about to try and open the hatch again, when suddenly we heard something moaning. Something howling. A thump. It sounded like it was coming from inside the armored transport.
We heard a moan of pain.
And then another moan.
It was the unmistakable sound of the infected.
Ben raised his shotgun. “Get behind me.”
“Where are they?” I asked. “Are they in the tank?”
I had my rifle raised up to my shoulder, ready for the onslaught. I was searching the massive hangar. There were a million hiding places. Behind each tank or Humvee. Under them. Or inside them.
We heard another thump. More moaning. It had to be coming from the tank, I thought.
“Are they in the tank?” I asked again.
“Yeah,” Ben answered. “They’re in there,” he said, pointing with the shotgun. “In that tank. It’s a troop transport. Holds maybe a dozen or so soldiers.”
“So there could be twelve infected people in there?”
“Maybe more.”
Ben moved back towards the tank and reached out to the door handle.
“Wait. What the hell are you doing?”
“Taking care of them.”
“What? Why don’t we just leave them in there?”
“No. The door closes and locks from the inside. I don’t think it’s locked. Won’t be safe if these bastards are running around down here. We gotta take care of them.”
I gripped my rifle, made sure it was loaded. Made sure the safety was off. I wanted nothing more than to leave those poor infected soldiers to rot inside that tank, but Ben was right.
We had to take care of them. It was too dangerous to leave them in there.
“Get back,” Ben said.
Another thump.
The hatch moved.
The infected moaned. Louder. More desperate. They were inside all right, and they were now trying to break out. They knew we were there.
Before Ben could open the hatch and move back to a safe distance, they pushed it open. The infected are relentless and once they know there is food, fresh meat, fresh hosts on offer, they don’t stop.
The infected barged through the armored door, knocking the hatch open, knocking me on my back.
I raised my rifle.
Ben aimed his shotgun at the infected, the torch on the barrel shone into the tank. The torch lit up the eyes of the infected.
The eyes of demons.
A tank full.
Chapter 12
I scrambled to my feet and opened fire in a panic. I began shooting and shuffling backwards.
“Get behind me!” Ben shouted.
He calmly unloaded with the shotgun. He took out two or three infected with one shot, knocking them clean off their feet.
Suddenly more infected piled out from the next tank over. I turned and unleashed with my rifle. I emptied an entire magazine within seconds.
I reloaded.
Kept firing.
Empty.
“Ben! Help!”
He turned and raised his shotgun in one swift movement. “Get down!”
He continued to unload. Methodical and almost rhythmic. He would take a shot, and then pump the shotgun, ejecting the spent cartridge. Then he would take another shot. And another. He continued to take out two or three infected at t
he one time.
When he ran out of shells, he used the gun as a baseball bat and completely caved in the skulls of the last remaining infected. When it was over, the infected lay in a pile. We were safe for the moment. Although Ben had busted the torch on the shotgun.
“Why?” I asked, between deep breaths. “Why did they bring them back here?”
“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “Maybe one of the soldiers was infected. Maybe they didn’t realize.”
I shook my head. “No. We’re passed that point. These people, the soldiers, they know. They know the symptoms. They know all the tell-tale signs. They wouldn’t let anyone who was infected into their tank. Unless they wanted to. They were herding them. They were bringing them back here. And they messed up.” I pointed to the pile of dead. “Look. There are only four soldiers here. The rest are civilians. They were rounding them up. They were bringing them back here on purpose. Why?”
“Don’t know,” Ben answered. “Research, maybe?”
I stepped forward cautiously. I was about to check the inside of the tank. Maybe there were orders or documents or something that would give us a clue as to exactly what the hell they were trying to do. But just then we heard another noise. It wasn’t a moan or howl of an infected person. The noise was mechanical. Gears whirring into action.
The calm and soothing pre-recorded female voice said, “Proximity alarm has been tripped. Vehicle Access Point has been locked for security purposes.”
Two huge security blast doors were closing, high above the platform. The blast doors were two solid steel slabs. I guess it was sort of like an airlock.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“The proximity alarm,” Ben said. “Something is up there. Something is coming.”
I suddenly realized that the only source of light in this underground hangar was coming from the desert.
We were about to be locked inside this hangar. It was about to get real dark, real soon.
Ben grabbed me by the shoulder. “Get in the tank.”
“What? Why?”
“Something tripped the proximity alarm. Something bad.”
“What?”
“Look,” he said, pointing to the blast doors.
Just as they were about to close together, something slid inside. Something dark. Black smoke.