by James Harden
The Beginning of The End
I’m sitting in the penthouse suite of a hotel in Los Angeles with a TV camera pointed at my face. Sitting next to me is a journalist from a well known news program, although I can’t remember which news program they said. Was it Fox News or something on CNN? Maybe it was 60 minutes? For the life of me I can’t remember. After everything I’ve been through, little details like which global TV network I’m appearing on are starting to slip my mind.
The journalist also has a camera pointed at his face but I don’t think the cameras are on yet. At least I hope they’re not on yet. I look like crap. The makeup department is going to have their work cut out for them when they get here. I’ve just been through hell and as a result I look like hell. What’s that saying again? A face for radio?
The room is full of people working frantically to get everything ready in time. There’s the camera man and a sound guy. There’s a guy holding up a big white reflective thing and an important looking woman who could be a producer or something of that nature.
The important looking woman walks over to me with a clipboard in hand and asks me if I’m feeling all right. “Are you feeling all right?” She checks her clipboard. “Have you taken your medication?”
I haven’t been able to sleep since I made it back. They gave me some pills to help with the insomnia but they’re not working. I don’t want to tell her this. So I nod my head and smile.
The producer kneels down in front of me. “Rebecca, we did a brief background check on you and we just need you to verify some of our facts.”
I nod my head again. They need to put a human face to all of this and at the moment I’m the only human face they’ve got.
She runs a French manicured finger nail down the clip board and asks me a whole bunch of boring stuff like how I grew up in Brooklyn and then moved to Sydney. How I’m only sixteen years old and how I don’t even have a driver’s license yet.
“Is that even important?” I ask about the driver’s license.
“We can use it to highlight how young you are.”
“Oh.”
Then she asks about the stuff I don’t want people to know about. She asks me about my father. “OK, according to this, your father was killed in action while serving in Afghanistan when you were thirteen?”
“No.”
“No?”
“They never confirmed he had been killed,” I say. “They never found his body.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that our records indicate...”
“He’s MIA.”
She makes a note on her clipboard. “Missing in action. Got it. I’m sorry, to push these issues, Rebecca. But we need to be sure of everything. If at any stage you feel uncomfortable during the interview we can stop and take a break. The interview will be a delayed telecast of about thirty minutes so we’ve got plenty of time.”
“You’re not going to ask me about all of that are you?”
“No. Not all of it. We just need to use some of that background information to introduce you to the public. Once they know your story, they’ll have a better understanding of everything that’s going on. You have a big responsibility. You’re the only survivor. People have a right to know what happened down there. And since the military aren’t talking, we’re all counting on you.”
It’s weird how they keep saying I’m the only survivor, like the others are already dead. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around just how many people died. I think I’m still in denial.
The producer introduces me to the journalist. “Rebecca, this is Steve Munroe. He’s one of our most senior reporters here.”
His face looks familiar but I was never really one for watching hardcore news programs.
He extends his hand to shake mine. “Hi, Rebecca. I just want to say I admire your courage and determination. You’re a brave girl for doing this.”
I shake his hand.
The producer’s phone rings and she walks away to answer it.
“Now Rebecca,” says Steve, the journalist. “Before we start recording, I just want to run you through some of the questions I’ll be asking you.”
“OK.”
“If there’s anything you don’t want to talk about you just let me know.”
“Will do.”
He tells me people will want to know four things. “So basically, with a big story like this, people always want to know four things. They want to know the who, the what, the why and the how.”
I nod my head.
“The who is easy. That’s you. You are the sole survivor. People will want to know all about you. They’ll want to know what makes you special, what makes you tick. Once people know who you are, they’ll want to know what happened down there and why it happened. But they won’t want to hear it from just anyone; they’ll want to hear it from you, straight from your mouth, straight from the source.”
I wonder if anyone will even believe me when I tell them what is happening down there.
“But a big part of this interview will deal with the how of it. How did you do it? How did you survive when so many people didn’t make it? When so many people died?”
That’s a good question. I’ve been trying to figure this one out ever since I made it back. But I can’t. All I can think about are the people who matter most to me. Forget about the millions of other people. I know it sounds selfish but that’s the way it is. I can’t stop thinking about my mother. I can’t stop thinking about my friends. Maria and Kenji. Jack and Kim. We survived so much. We survived together. Yet somehow I’m the only one who made it out. Somehow, I’m the only one giving this interview.
“I mean, the entire Australian population is gone,” says Steve. “Over twenty million people wiped out in a matter of weeks. People will want to know, people will need to know how you escaped, how you stayed alive.”
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And the more I think about it, the more I realize my friends were the reason I survived. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be here. No freakin way.
The producer walks back over to us as she hangs up her phone. “Rebecca sweetie, just answer the questions like no one else is in the room, OK? Take all the time you need. I understand if everything might be a little hazy.”
I tell her I’ll try real hard to remember even though everything is crystal clear, ultra real, like I’m watching my memories on a high definition, flat screen television.
The producer looks at her watch. “We haven’t got long. We’re going live in one hour. Steve, can I talk to you in private for a second?”
“Live?” I ask.
“Yeah. There’s been a slight change of plan.”
The two of them exchange a look and I get the feeling that something is wrong.
“Please excuse me for just one minute,” says the journalist. “Oh, and while I’m gone try and think about the turning point for you. The moment when you realized something bad was about to happen.”
They both walk off to the master bedroom. They start talking. The producer then turns around and closes the door behind her.
Great. This is going to be worse than I thought. I’m starting to regret my decision to give this interview. I know people have a right to hear the truth but do they really need to hear it from me? I was never a good public speaker, never good at verbalizing what I wanted to say.
Maybe I should just run away. No one is really paying attention. Not the sound guy, not even the camera man. I could totally do it. I could walk out of the room, take the elevator down to the lobby, hail a taxi. Seems like a good option, an easier option. But then I see Steve left his pen and notepad on his chair. The producer mentioned something about everyone counting on me to find out what happened especially since the military aren’t answering questions. The media have called it ‘The Secret Apocalypse’, a full on extinction level event that was covered up and kept hidden from the world. It’s hard to believe in this age of information no one really knows what’s going on.
It’s hard to b
elieve no one knows the truth. No one but me.
I remind myself that I do have a duty of sorts. Not just to answer everyone’s questions, but to my friends, to let people know what they did, how awesome and heroic they were right to the very end. So I pick up the pen and the notepad and head for the bathroom. I lock the door and sit down on the cool marble floor.
People need the truth and this is the best way. I used to write a lot, especially after my father disappeared. So I force myself to concentrate. It takes a few minutes but then my brain kicks into gear and starts working overtime. The pen begins to move almost of its own accord. My writing is messy but legible. Everything is being replayed in my mind’s eye at high speed. Important events are being freeze framed, rewound, watched over and over. I scribble down the main points that people need to know about.
The quarantine.
The Oz Virus.
My friends. Maria. Jack. Kim.
And Kenji.
The massive cover up by the government and the military.
Twenty-two million people dead.
The Secret Apocalypse.