Torn Apart (25 page)

I said, “Nothing’s wrong. I have so much school
work.”

I lied.

It was a white lie to save face. I just wanted
out.

The manager said he understood. But he’d keep
my details on file just in case I needed extra cash or if they
needed someone to work in an emergency. Like if they had an
employee shortage or whatever. I thought nothing of it. Anyway, a
couple of months later he sends me a text. He doesn’t even call; he
just sends me a text.

“
Can you work on Friday?”

I had a dream that night.

Not a dream. A nightmare.

I dreamt I was a prostitute. It was my first
time. My first night. My boss, the manager, the pimp, was
encouraging me to do it. I needed the money, right? There’s nothing
wrong with it.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

My subconscious had articulated how I felt, how
I felt whole heartedly about working that job. Working for no other
reason than to get paid.

I shake my head. Those problems feel so old
world. They feel like they were from another lifetime. I would
gladly go back to work, flipping burgers and working the
deep-fryer. I would gladly go back to a shitty after-school job
with shitty pay.

“
Hi, may I take your order? Would
you like to upsize?”

This sounds like a kind of heaven right now. A
kind of paradise. Hell, I’m getting teary-eyed just thinking about
it.

But I no longer have the luxury of choosing not
to work a part-time job.

This is my life now:

Running.

Fighting.

Killing.

Hiding.

Food

Water.

Surviving.

And I am not prepared. I am not ready. This is
my final test. And I forgot to study.

I forgot my pants.

I am struggling to survive.

It always came down to food and water. We were
always so hungry. So thirsty. Me. My friends. The little group we
had formed. We were basically a small unit of soldiers. We had to
be. It was the only way we were ever going to make it. A ‘fire
team’ is what Kenji called us. And we were pretty
awesome.

But not anymore.

So my life is this: I need to find them. I need
to find them because I have no idea where the hell they are, and I
have nothing else to do and nothing else to lose.

And I
need
my friends.

My friends are all that I have left in this
life.

I have no idea if they’re dead or alive, but I
choose to believe that they are alive because the other scenario is
completely not good. The other scenario would probably cause me to
shut down.

So my dreams are no longer about whether or not
I’m ‘selling out’.

This is my dream. The dream I just
had.

I’m giving a speech. I’m trying to make a case.
An argument. I’m trying to persuade people, someone. Someone
important that my friends deserve to live.

Suddenly I’m naked.

I’m afraid of failing.

My friends are tied up. They are standing on
the gallows. Noose around their necks. Black hessian sack over
their heads.

The hangman is there, but I’m not talking to
him. He’s just following orders. He’s just a soldier. He’s just a
pawn.

There is someone else. The mastermind. The man
in control. I need to convince him.

And I’m failing. I am not prepared for
this.

The hangman pulls the lever. My friends are
hanged. I hear neck bones and vertebrae snap.

I hear choking noises.

And then I hear the rope creaking against the
wooden gallows.

And then I hear silence.

And then I’m awake.

And I realize I am not dreaming.

I realize that…

This.

Is.

Real.

And I am in pain. And the pain is freaking
excruciating. And the pain is real.

I am disorientated and confused and I’m
thinking way too much. And my thoughts are real and terrifying. And
dead people don’t think like this, do they?

No. There’s no way.

My watch beeps three times.

And I can’t believe how hard I am breathing.
How hard my head is throbbing.

The watch says fifty-three hours and fifty nine
minutes. And the clock is ticking and I need to get a move
on.

I re-read the message that the man in the gas
mask left for me.

He wrote it on a piece of paper that Kenji had
folded into an origami crane.

The whole world will look

for a girl to save their souls.

They will watch hope die.

This is a powerful message. It tells me what
the man in the gas mask plans to do.

He is going to kill Maria on camera. He is
going to record it and broadcast it and show the world.

He is going to terrify everyone across the
globe.

He says he wants to set them free.

He says this because he is insane. He says this
because he is a mass-murdering psychopath.

I am lying on my back and I scrunch up the
piece of paper and throw it into the corner of the room.

And I want to get up. But I can’t.

So I close my eyes.

And more time disappears forever.

But then there’s a thump at the door. The
scratching of fingernails.

And maybe this is the motivation I
needed.

The
infected
are banging on the door. They know I am here. They are coming for
me.

And I tell myself, I am ready to
die.

I tell myself I am ready for hell.

I am ready for the fight.

“
I am ready.”

Let’s do this.

Chapter 1

The wooden door begins to splinter.

And I can’t help but wonder, “How the hell do
they know I’m here?”

The Oz virus is designed to find
life.

Find life and destroy it. Consume
it.

Feed.

Spread.

Repeat.

The watch beeps. It beeps on the hour, every
hour. I have less than fifty-four hours, less than three days left
and the door is beginning to splinter. The lock is beginning to
break. The handle is coming loose.

Carved into the door is another
message.

Another haiku of horror.

So how will you live,

when you have three days to die?

The gods do not hear.

I ignore the message left by the man in the gas
mask. I ignore his scare tactics and I finally get to my feet. I
jam the table against the door. It’s the only thing I can do to
stop the infected from barging in here and tearing me limb from
limb and eating me alive.

The door and the lock and the handle continue
to break. Bit by bit. The door is now open a crack. And now they
can see me. They moan louder. They growl and snap their
jaws.

They will eventually break through. I don’t
have the energy to keep them out for much longer.

I quickly scan the room. My brain is slow and
sluggish and I can barely think and I have no idea how I am going
to get out of this room. This concrete box. This prison.

The mirror.

It is not made of concrete. It is made of
glass.

I can break the glass.

This is my brain on sedatives. Stupid. Slow.
Sluggish. But I realize I only have one option. I need to break the
mirror and climb into the next room and then deal with the seven
years bad luck.

The mirror covers the entire wall and I can see
my reflection.

And this is what I see. I see that I am
struggling. My hair is still short. They shaved my hair when I
arrived at the New Zealand quarantine facility. All those months
ago. And now as a result, it’s grown into this weird, messy, pixie
cut. My hair is unbelievably dirty and greasy and it matches the
state of my skin. And my clothes.

I have bags under my bloodshot eyes.

I have this strange, sad, pathetic look of
desperation on my face. It’s a look that says, “I don’t want to
die. Not yet. Not here. Not in a room. In a prison within a prison.
I don’t want to die alone.”

This is what my face says.

And what I want is; I want to live. I want to
save Maria from the man in the gas mask, the psychopath who drugged
me and injected me with a time release nano-swarm.

The psychopath who has sentenced me to
death.

The psychopath who is going to kill Maria.
Record it. Show the world. Like a terrorist.

He wants to destroy hope. He wants to spread
fear.

He wants to burn the old Empires. Create a new
world.

A better, stronger world.

I need to stop this maniac.

I need to deal with my impending
death.

But first, I need to find my
friends. I need to
believe
my friends are alive.

I tell myself, “They are alive.”

So I need to break the mirror and jump into the
next room and keep moving. But how? How the hell am I supposed to
break the mirror? I have my entire body weight pushed against the
table that is pushed up against the broken door.

My weight.

The table.

The broken door.

These are the only things keeping me alive at
the moment.

The infected snap their jaws. And their teeth
clack together.

They are biting the air because they want to
bite me.

I dig my shoes into the smooth concrete floor.
The rubber soles take a firm grip. I slide my back down against the
door so I am almost sitting down. I stick one leg out to reach for
one of the chairs that are situated near the middle of the room.
The tip of my shoe brushes against the leg of the nearest chair.
But I can’t reach it. I try again and I end up kicking the chair
further away. I twist my body, keeping one shoulder against the
door. The infected are relentless. The door opens further but not
enough for them to get in, just enough to send them into a frenzy,
to rile them up even more.

One of them squeezes half a shoulder and half
their arm through the gap. They reach through the gap. It reaches
out for me. Its fingers graze my hair.

I ignore it. I focus.

I reach out to the chair. I hook my foot around
the leg and drag it over.

I grab the chair and stand up, keeping my
weight against the door. Pushing harder. Pushing so hard I hear the
bones in the infected man’s arm snap. Despite the broken bones it
still moves and thrashes around. It is still reaching out for me.
It does not feel pain.

I have the chair in my left hand. My right
shoulder is pinned against the door. I swing the chair back and
forth, building momentum. Building speed. Building
force.

Force = Speed x Weight.

Another documentary. More long lost
information.

I throw the chair and it smashes the mirror and
the glass shatters and I now have a way out and I now have seven
years bad luck.

But I don’t care about the bad luck.

Things can’t get any worse right now so I just
don’t care.

I.

Just.

Don’t.

Care.

Now for the hard part.

I need to run to the mirror and jump into the
next room. Once I start running, once my weight is no longer pushed
up against the door, the infected will barge in. They will chase.
With single minded aggression and unimaginable ferocity, they will
chase.

I won’t have long. Seconds maybe.

I prepare myself for this.

For the chase.

For the flight.

I take a deep breath.

I move away from the door.

I run towards the mirror.

Chapter 2

I don’t make it.

Not before the door flies open and practically
flies off its hinges. The door shatters and splits in half and
splinters into bits of kindling. I take two big steps towards the
mirror, towards the next room.

But I don’t make it.

The infected barge in. One infected man. He was
too close.

He.

It.

Whatever.

It was too close.

I realize in an instant that I am not going to
make it. Not unless I fight back.