The Lost Journal Part 2 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (18 page)

He
then threw the gun to the ground and turned to me and Jack. "You see? We’re not
bad. We were following orders. We were sacrificing people for the greater good.
You gotta kill the few to save the many. That’s the way to beat this thing. You
just kill the hosts. Cut off its food source. There’s what, twenty million
people in Australia? That’s nothing. That’s a drop in the ocean. We’re gonna
nuke the entire country. That’s how you win. You make the call. You press the
button!"

He
started backing away from us, back towards to door. "Do not follow me."

He
turned and sprinted out of the basement up the stairs.

"Come
on," I said to Jack "We gotta go get him."

Jack
picked up his rifle. "What? Why? Let him go. We need to get the hell out of
here."

"No.
I need to finish this."

We
ran up the stairs and out through the broken glass doors of the school’s main
entrance.

The
soldier had climbed up on top of the Humvee. He armed the 50cal and started
shooting the big machine gun into the surrounding buildings. Glass shattered
and fell into the streets.

This
soldier had been pushed to the edge. He had done things no man should ever have
done. He had ordered in air strikes to kill innocent people. He had watched his
fellow soldiers, his brothers die. One by one. Physically he had survived up
until now. But mentally, emotionally and spiritually he had been crushed.

When
a person goes through hell, their body and soul and mind need to survive. If
any one of these things dies, the person dies.

I
raised my rifle and took aim. I put the bullet in the base of his neck.

He
fell back awkwardly, letting go of the heavy machine gun. He fell on to the
road. Somehow the bullet had only clipped his neck. He was bleeding profusely.
Despite this he was still alive. He got to his knees.

"They’re
not coming are they?" he whispered. "They don’t have a vaccine do they? They
left us here to die."

"What?
A vaccine?"

"Yeah,
they said they were manufacturing a vaccine. They were lying weren’t they? They
lied about everything. I don’t know what happened in here. I don’t know how it
came to this. You guys can understand, right? You guys can forgive me?"

Jack
had heard enough. He stepped forward and shot him in the head, finishing him
off. The soldier fell back so that his legs were still folded up underneath his
upper-body. We stood there in silence for a few minutes.

Our
goal was to find a radio. Make contact. Get help. Get rescued. We could not
have prepared ourselves for this.

"Please,
Kenji," Jack said. "Don't tell anyone about this. You can’t. Especially Maria.
Please. She won't understand. She can’t know how close I came to dying. I mean,
this guy pulled a gun on me. Shot at me at point blank range. Don’t tell her I
killed him. I don’t want her to think of me like that."

"It's
OK. You did what you had to do. Maria will understand."

"I
can't take that risk. I can't lose her. Not here. Not again. Look, we’ve got
the Humvee. That’s a good thing. It’s the silver lining to this whole messy
situation. Maria doesn’t need to know. Let’s just go and get her and get the
hell out of this city."

So
we agreed to keep the incident between us.

I
checked the soldier’s pockets and found the keys for the armored Humvee. It was
our ticket out of this hell hole.

Fate

We did the right thing

Or
did we? I don't even know anymore.

Fate
and the choices we make.

I
really wish I could remember the name of that book.

It’s
killing me.

I
told Jack that before we go back into the city again, I need to write this
down.

I
need to. And for some messed up reason it feels like a final entry.

I've
also told jack that leaving Maria inside the stadium was the right thing to do.
I have told him a million times.

"We
did the right thing," I said. "Leaving Maria inside the stadium was the right
thing to do. She is safe."

I'm
trying to convince him that Maria is safe. As long as she stays inside she is
safe.

We
drove back to the stadium in silence. We were a mess of emotions. Overall we
were happy and relieved that we had found a working, armored Humvee. We had the
means to get out of the city. So yeah, we were happy. But we were also in
shock. We were saddened by what we had seen and by what had become of those soldiers.
And that man in the alley. Those guys had lost everything. They had been broken
by this plague. Mind, body and soul.

Everything.

"Let’s
just get out of here," Jack said. "Drive as far out of the city as we can go."

"We’ll
have to stock up on supplies first," I said. "Pack as much food and water as we
can find in the stadium. Pack as much as we can fit into the Humvee."

"Yeah,
right. Of course. But as soon as we do that we get the hell out of here."

Jack
maneuvered the car through the narrow back streets of Sydney’s inner suburbs. I
was glad for Jack’s local knowledge. If I was driving, we’d still be going
around in circles. I was instantly disorientated.

We
approached the stadium, the SCG. We could only barely see it through the dust
storm.

"Where
do we park this thing?" Jack asked.

"Good
question. Maybe we should drive it around to the main entry point. Or maybe one
of the emergency tunnels?"

I
was scanning the perimeter of the stadium, trying to locate a suitable and safe
place to park the Humvee.

Movement
caught my eye.

We
must've been a mile out, maybe less.

"Jack,
slow down," I said.

"What
is that?" he asked.

"I
don’t know."

I
couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see clearly through the dust storm. It looked like
a convoy of cars. They were being chased by the infected.

A
very large group of infected.

"Who
the hell is that?" Jack asked.

"I
don’t know."

We
were too far away, the dust was too thick. They could’ve been civilians. They
could’ve been military.

Jack
stopped the Humvee. "Are they here for Maria?"

"How
would they know she’s even there?"

"Maybe
she made contact with the radio?"

"Yeah
maybe."

I
picked up the radio and turned it on.

It
was full of static.

Jack
snatched it out of my hand. "Maria! Are you there?"

More
static.

No
answer.

"I
don’t think they’re here for Maria," I whispered.

The
reality was there was nothing we could do. It was like watching a tsunami roll
into shore. Jack drove the Humvee as close as he dared. Initially we had been anxious
and nervous to pack up and get out of the city.

But
now we were witnessing our worst nightmare play out right before our eyes.

It
was a convoy of some sort.

A motorcade.

They
had somehow gotten themselves surrounded. They had driven up to the stadium. Maybe
they figured they could hide there. Seek refuge. Same as we did. Maybe our
barricades were their ultimate down fall. I can imagine it clearly. They were
driving fast. Foot to the floor. They would’ve been pushing sixty miles per
hour. Driving as fast as they dared through the dust storm.

Visibility
low.

They
saw the stadium.

They
drove up to it.

They
became trapped.

Once
they stopped moving, once they lost momentum, the swarm of infected over ran
them.

Like
a tsunami.

It
was unstoppable.

I
told jack to park the Humvee. I opened the door and climbed to the roof.

We
watched. Helpless.

The
horde. It was massive.

The
number of infected in this city just keeps growing. Thousands surrounded the
stadium. They had pushed some of the cars over. Most of the people in the
convoy chose to run for their lives. But they did not get far. They were immediately
tackled to the ground.

Ripped
limb from limb.

Eaten
alive.

I
couldn't see if they were soldiers or civilians or police officers.

The
dust storm was too thick.

Jack
was shaking his head. "We should never have left her," Jack whispered, a strain
in his voice. "What have we done?"

"We
had no choice," I answered. "We did the right thing. This was unforeseeable."

"What
if they get inside!? What happens then, huh?"

"They
won’t get inside. We secured the stadium. We locked all the entry points. We barricaded
the tunnels. They won’t get in."

"So
what the hell do we do now?"

"I
don’t know."

"You
don’t know? You’re the soldier, Kenji! You have to know what to do! We have to
go and get her."

Everything
happened so quickly. Everything has gone to hell. "Look, you need to keep your
voice down. We need to stay calm. The barricades should hold."

"Should?
For how long? We need to go and get her."

"How
the hell are we going to do that?"

"I
don’t know. We need to think of something. We need to think fast."

Jack
was right. Who knew how long the barricades would hold?

"We
need guns," I said. "Lots of guns. Lots of ammo. We could pick them off from a
safe distance. Thin the herd so to speak."

Overhead
we heard what sounded like a helicopter fly into the city. We both looked up,
but the dust storm obscured our view.

"What
the hell is going on?" Jack said.

I
took a deep breath. "I don’t know. Maybe the military is trying to reclaim
certain areas of the city? I just don’t know."

Jack
grabbed me by the shoulders. "Kenji, we need to do something. We need a plan.
You tell me what to do and I will follow you. I will do whatever it takes. But
we need to go right now. We need to save Maria. We can’t let the infected get
to her. We can’t."

I
nodded. "We have to go back into the city."

Jack
immediately jumped down off the roof and sat in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t
wasting any more time.

I
sat next to him in the front passenger seat. I told him to wait.

I
needed to write this down.

He
gave me a look that said we didn’t have time. But then he relented. He
understood. So we sat in silence. I wrote. He kept watch. We were both lost in
our own world - if only for a fleeting moment.

I
told jack about the letter I wrote for Rebecca. I told him that I kept in my
top pocket next to my heart. I told him that I thought it brought me good luck.

"Good,"
he said. "We’re gonna need all the luck we can get."

"I
gave it to her back in the casino," I said. "I don't have it anymore."

"Oh.
Well maybe your journal can bring us good luck instead. Maybe it can be our
good luck charm."

"Yeah,
maybe. I guess it has been through a lot with me."

I
looked at the journal in my hands. It’s more of a notepad really. And it has
been through a lot. I’ve only had it for a month. I flicked through the pages. It’s
kind of sad that some of them have been ruined from water damage. But I guess
it’s not the worst thing in the world.

I
put my pen to the page.

I write…

We
won't give up.

We
can't give up.

We
need a freakin miracle. And I must admit I’m almost at my wits end here. I’m so
close to just collapsing. But then I look at Jack. He is one tough dude. He
will never give up. Not for Maria. Not for me. He is one of the bravest guys I
have ever known.

So we’re going back into the city. It is
quite literally the last place I want to go, the last place we should dare to
go. But we need to find another machine gun if we want any chance of clearing
out that horde of infected. The horde keeps growing and growing. They appear to
be multiplying. More and more join the massive crowd every minute, every
passing second.
We need to do something now or they’ll find
Maria. They’ll find her and eat her alive.

We’ve
tried using the radio to contact Maria a couple more times but it’s not
working. Must be out of range. We can’t get any closer. It’s too dangerous.

A
few days ago I thought I was losing my mind. And I guess I really was. The one
thing keeping me sane was Jack and Maria. They are my friends. They are keeping
me together. Giving me strength.