The Lost Journal Part 2 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (8 page)

The stores
were mainly for designer labels.

Louis
Vuitton.

Versace.

Gucci.

Five star
luxury brand names smack bang in the middle of a warzone. They were covered in
blood, damaged from small arms fire. Next to the Queen Victoria building was a
large bronze statue, probably of Queen Victoria. She was sitting on her throne,
ruler of her domain. Or at least this particular intersection.

The street
and the intersection were packed with abandoned cars. We couldn’t see any
infected.

This meant I
would have to go now.

Damn.

I told Jack
to cover me as best he could from the balcony. "Stay below the railing. Stay
hidden. If you need to shoot, rest the barrel on top of the railing. This will
help with your aim. Now, if you do have to shoot, it’s not that important if
you actually hit anything. But I’ll know if you fire this gun, that there’s
infected in the area and that I need to get to cover. OK?"

Jack nodded.
He didn’t say anything. He was too nervous.

"And don’t
shoot on full automatic," I added. "You’ll just waste the ammo. Single shot.
Nice and controlled."

He nodded
again.

"Just be
careful," Maria said.

I snuck out
one of the emergency exits on the ground floor. I sprinted across the road,
ducking between all the abandoned cars. I made it to the supermarket in good
time.

The sign
read:

IGA - Independent Grocers Association.

The
automatic glass doors of the entrance had been smashed in. My boots crunched on
broken glass as I made my way into the grocery store. It was immediately
apparent that the place had been looted. The shelves were completely bare. I
noticed some droplets of blood on the floor.

I made my
way to the rear, hoping to find some cans of food that had been left behind or
missed in the panic. Maybe a few bottles of water. Something.

The deeper I
made my way into the store, the more blood I saw.

The droplets
became long arching splatters of red. It looked like a deranged serial killer
had decided to get creative, using the floor as his canvas. Blood as his paint.

Remember how
I told you I was seeing dead people?

It happened
again. In the grocery store.

Sitting
against the shelves that lined that back wall was an employee of the store.

His uniform
was stained with blood. His name tag read:

 
Imran, Store Manager.

His skin was
a mess of wounds. Bite wounds. And gunshot wounds. His jaw was open. There was
a giant hole in the back of his head. He was sitting in a pool of his own
blood.

"Sorry about
the mess," he said.

I took a
step back. I am always surprised at how loud and clear the voice is.

"The place
was looted," he continued. "People went mad. What was I to do? This one guy, he
did not want food. He wanted money. He robbed the store. Why? Why would he do
that? Did he not know? Did he not realize what was happening? Money is no good.
Not anymore. Probably won’t be for awhile. We are going back to the dark ages.
Money means nothing. He was a fool."

"Are you
mad?" I asked.

"Mad?"

"Angry."

"No. Not
anymore. I was. At first. As the last of my blood oozed out on to the supermarket
floor. The same floor that I’d spent countless nights cleaning and buffing and
sweeping. I cleaned this floor so many times. So many hours spent. So many
hours wasted. Now it is stained with my blood. It will never be clean. Never
again. And nothing will change that. Do you see? That is why I am not angry. Because
nothing can change this. Nothing. That man, he was a fool. He will always be a
fool. Nothing will change that."

The man
reached up to the back of his head and felt his wound. "Before I died," he
continued. "I witnessed the chaos. I saw hell on earth. I had to take charge. People
were being eaten alive outside. They were being shot by soldiers and police
officers. They were being executed. It was my duty."

"What duty?
What are you talking about?"

"They, the
soldiers, they were knocking on the door. Screaming. Demanding to be let in.
Ordering us to evacuate. I took my family. We hid in the storeroom. I did what
any loving father would do. We were surrounded. The military had lost control.
It was chaos. Tell me you understand. Tell me. Say it."

"I
understand."

"My son was
bitten. He was sick. I saw what they did with the sick people. I knew. What
would you do? Would you give him over? I do not regret what I did. No. Not even
slightly. It was my divine right. The only thing I regret is not telling him enough.
He was my only son. And I did not tell him enough that I loved him. I did not
tell my family enough. And now it is too late. As a child I was told the more
we suffer in this life the more we are rewarded in the next life. Well, I have
suffered."

Suddenly
Gordon appeared, kneeling over the man. He checked his pulse and shined a torch
into his eyes. "What do you think happened to that boy in the village in the
Hindu Kush?" he asked me. "He was sick. He was wild. What do you think?"

"Gordon? What
are you doing here?"

"I’m looking
for answers. The medivac showed up quick after the skirmish, don’t you think?"

"No. We were
calling them; we were calling for aerial support. Of course they came."

"They sent
in the big guns for a couple of grunts and a one tiny non-existent village? I
don’t think so. They turned up before they could’ve known. They showed up fast.
Before word spread. You know what that tells me?"

"What?"

"It tells me
they knew."

"Knew what?"

"They knew
the boy was sick."

"He was
poisoned."

"He was sick
in the kind of way that would warrant special attention. Remember the noise he
made? Remember the noise he made when he was banging against the door? Remember
that? Do you? He was banging his head on the door. It was constant. Relentless.
He wasn’t stopping. He had two broken arms. A compound fracture. He didn’t
stop."

At that
moment I heard a thump. There was a knocking on the door. The sign on the door
read, ‘storeroom’.

Gordon
looked over at the door and then back at me. "You better tell them."

"Tell them
what?"

"Tell them
you’ll be right there. Tell Imran, tell him you’ll set things right."

I looked at
the door. The handle turned slowly, back and forth. It was locked. I gripped my
rifle. I gripped it tight.

"You might
wanna do this quietly," Gordon whispered as he put his index finger up to his
cold, blue lips. "Shh. You don’t know how many more of them are in the area."

He pointed
to a fire axe on the wall. "Use in case of emergency. I guess this situation could
be classed as an emergency, don’t you think?"

I grabbed
the axe. I told Imran, "I’ll set things right."

He didn’t
respond.

I stood in
front of the door and I told his family, "I’ll be right there."

I opened the
door. And I swung the axe.

We go hungry for another night.

I told Jack and Maria that I found nothing. I told them the shelves were
completely bare. The place had been looted. I didn’t tell them about the store
manager and his family. I’d left the fire axe lodged in the skull of the
manager’s wife.

"We need to
make a move," I said as I desperately tried to erase that memory from my mind.
"The center point shopping complex," I continued. "Does it have any super
markets? Grocery stores? Anything."

"I don’t
know," Jack answered. "You would think so. I mean, it would have to have some
sort of food store."

"Maria?"

"I don’t
know. We always did our grocery shopping online. Home delivered. I only ever
came in here to shop for clothes."

It was
getting hard to think straight. Hunger and dehydration were setting in. The
brain stops functioning. Planning and problem solving become near impossible.

I knew there
would be dangers. But we had no choice.

"We move," I
said. "First thing in the morning. We make our way to the Center Point Tower.
We move together. We move in silence."

Feb 10th - They’re back

It was a few minutes after dawn. I had made my way out to the balcony again. I
hadn’t been able to sleep.

The city was
quiet. The sky was this weird pinkish, orange color. Smoke and haze lingered
over the buildings.

I looked to
the east, down one of the main roads of inner Sydney, and realized that I might
have few more sleepless nights ahead of me. The reason? At that moment, a massive
horde of infected were stumbling back into the city. It was like a river of
people, or a parade or a pilgrimage or something. The street was packed.

"The virus
is designed to find life," I whispered to myself.

The warning
of that crazy doctor was being demonstrated right before my very eyes. These
infected people had no doubt chased the retreating soldiers, chased them all
the way to the coast. Those soldiers were most probably dead. And now the
infected were coming back, searching for more hosts.

I looked
through the crowd. I don’t know why I was looking. I should’ve ducked behind
the railing of the balcony. I should’ve crawled back inside immediately but I
couldn’t help myself. I rested my rifle on the edge of the sandstone railing
and looked through the scope.

Again, I
don’t know why I did this. I guess I just wanted to watch them. To see what
they were like when they weren’t chasing anyone, or eating anyone. I could see
all kinds of people.

Police officers.

Business men
and women.

School kids.

And
soldiers.

Lots of
soldiers.

These were ordinary
people who had been infected and turned into sick, twisted monsters.

I focused on
one soldier. A marine just like me. His rifle was still slung around his neck.
His cammies had been torn to shreds. His head, his skull had been cracked wide
open. I could see his brain. His jaw was broken. It was snapped at the mandible
so that it was hanging down near his neck. His entire face was covered in
blood.

And then he
looked at me.

His head
just snapped in my direction.

The range
was more than half a mile. There was no way he could see me. But he continued
to stare.

I ducked
behind the balcony. And to my surprise, crouching next to me was Drake. He sat
down, resting his back against the balcony railing. He then loosened his belt,
removed it from his pants, and tied if off around his bicep.

He took out
a syringe. He looked at me. "Morphine. Eases the pain."

I blinked.
Shook my head. This wasn’t real.

"Pain is
real," he said. "Well, sort of. You know I used to be terrified of needles. Not
anymore."

"What are
you doing?" I asked.

"What am I
doing? The real question is; what are you doing?"

"Reconnaissance."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

He nodded
towards the horde of infected. "They’re back. You’re screwed."

"Drake,
please. Don’t."

"You were
looking at that marine down there. Come on. Put him out of his misery. He
deserves that much. Or that little."

Drake stood
up and pointed the syringe down towards the approaching horde. He pointed it at
the marine. "Come on. Do it. Do it for me. Remember when I asked you for help?
I begged you. Begged. And you pussied out. Do you remember that?"

"We could’ve
saved you," I said.

"No. No. No.
There was no saving me. I had been bitten. You know what happens to people once
they get bitten. Well, except for Maria. Are you sure you’re fit to protect
her?"

"I hope
so."

Drake
stretched his arms out above his head and took a deep breath. "I love the smell
of the dead in the morning."

"Huh?"

"You know, like from that move. Apocalypse Now."

"Drake, I'm
sorry."

"Yeah, we’re all sorry."

I crawled back
inside and closed the door to the balcony as quietly as possible.

I made it
back to the office we had been sleeping in. Jack was awake. He knew something
was wrong.

"What is
it?" he asked.

"We gotta
go. We have to get off the streets. Get to high ground. Now. They’re back. It’s
not safe here."