Where The Dead Men Lie (The Secret Apocalypse) (8 page)

We all knew this would not be enough.

I can’t remember the exact moment Daniel said open fire. I just remember the noise.

The noise, of the gunshots.

All three of our rifles, firing in close proximity.

After a month of sneaking around, it was the loudest thing in the world. And I’m pretty sure my first few shots completely missed. Automatic rifles tend to pull back, which pulls the barrel upwards. I had to concentrate. Keep the barrel low. Aim for the head.

"Aim for the head," I whispered.

I went through the first two magazines in the blink of an eye.

So did Jack.

Daniel had to keep telling us to slow down. "Short, controlled bursts," he said in between shots.

You could tell Daniel’s training had kicked in. He was completely calm, completely focused. He was leading by example and eventually Jack and I got our act together and we got into a sort of rhythm.

Upstairs, Kenji would take out as many infected as he could, as soon as they climbed out of the creek bed.

Then Daniel would take out the ones who had made it past Kenji’s deadly aim.

The ones that managed to slip through both Daniel and Kenji were left to me and Jack. Once they were nice and close we were able to take care of them.

But there were thousands of infected. Kenji was right; it was probably the whole town.

And they were getting closer.

The voice of fear was getting louder. Almost as loud as the rifles and the moans of the infected.

The voice was saying, "Why didn’t you reinforce the barricades? Why didn’t you double board the windows? Why didn’t you find more bullets? Why couldn’t you find any water? You should’ve stayed away from that town!"

The main group was about a hundred yards away. A lot of the infected were falling.

Falling backwards. Falling forwards.

A lot of them were getting back up.

A lot of them continued crawling towards us.

Just when we thought we had seen the last of them, more came streaming out of the creek, out of the dark. Pretty soon they were on the front porch. They were banging up against the boards of the window sill. Banging up against the front door.

The hinges were breaking. The wood was splintering.

Daniel dropped his rifle, threw his weight against the couches and the book shelf that were barricading the front door.

"Keep shooting!" he yelled.

So we did. The one and only good thing about the infected being so close was that it was easier to shoot them in the head.

"Do we fall back?" Jack asked, shouting over the noise of the guns and the infected. "Do we go upstairs?"

"No! Not yet. Not until they break through!"

"But if they break through it’s too late!’

We were arguing and shooting. We were holding our ground but all I wanted to do was run.

"Short, controlled bursts!" Daniel shouted.

I drowned out the voice of fear, the voice that was telling me to run.

I got into a zone.

Shoot.

Reload.

Aim.

Fire.

Short, controlled bursts.

Aim for the head.

It was terrifying seeing the infected up close and personal. Their clothes were ragged and torn and stained with blood that had hemorrhaged out of their mouths, and noses and open wounds. Their faces looked skeletal thin. Their eyes were hollow and lifeless.

And yet the energy they possessed. The strength. It was simply incredible.

Kenji appeared at the top of the steps, waving us up. He obviously thought it was time to move.

Jack and Daniel were still shouting at each other, still arguing about what to do.

I was reloading my rifle when suddenly I heard the roar of a truck’s engine.

It sounded big.

At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But then the lights appeared. The truck was speeding up the gravel driveway. It then turned, veering off the path, coming right for us, right for the horde.

There were people on the back of the truck. They had guns. Lots of guns. It was difficult to see who they were or what kind of weapons they possessed because the headlights of the truck were so blindingly bright. But they must’ve been packing some serious firepower because they cleared out the remaining infected in a matter of minutes.

The ones they didn’t shoot, they ran over with the truck. It appeared to be a dump truck, the kind they used in mining for removing rocks and boulders and dirt. It was big, reinforced with steel plates and wire mesh over the windshields and windows. And whoever was driving it was a damn expert. They crushed the infected with reckless abandon. Automatic machine gun fire continued to tear through the horde and the ground. Limbs and dirt and other assorted body parts flew through the air.

The truck came to a stop just outside the front door. The lights blinded us.

A voice spoke, amplified by a loudspeaker or a bull horn. "Everyone remain calm. Do not resist."

Jack raised his rifle.

"No!" Kenji and Daniel shouted at the same time.

Daniel lowered the barrel of Jack’s gun. "They’ve got us outmanned and outgunned."

"It’s OK, Jack," Kenji said. "Just be cool."

"How did they know we were here?" I asked. "Have they been following us?"

A voice from behind the lights told us to drop our weapons. Get on the ground, face down. Hands behind our back. They told us not to worry. They had secured the area. We were perfectly safe.

People then emerged from behind the lights; they were nothing more than shadows at that point, shapes silhouetted against the lights.

They chopped down the boarded windows with axes. When they got closer we could see that the people were all wearing bandannas over their faces.

They told us to stay down, keep still. They tied our hands together. Some of them used handcuffs. Some used those plastic zip tie things.

We were then ordered on to the back of the huge dump truck.

We were blindfolded.

I knew that these people had just saved our lives but I couldn’t help but feel we were nothing more than prisoners.

CHAPTER 13

The truck started moving. It was a bumpy ride at first, but then it began to smooth out as we turned on to the road.

Which way did we turn? What direction were we now heading? Were we making our way closer to Daniel’s camp? Or had we turned back, in the complete opposite direction?

I had no idea. It was unsettling to be blindfolded.

"Is everyone all right?" I asked, wanting to make sure we were all still together.

A whispered voice answered me. "No talking."

"I just want to make sure that everyone …"

Before I could finish speaking I was cracked on the side of my jaw with what felt like the butt of a rifle. But I suppose it could’ve been the heel of someone’s boot. Either way it hurt like hell. The shock of being hit made my eyes water. The entire side of my face felt hot and numb at the same time.

"Pay attention," the voice hissed. "No talking means no goddamn talking. They’re attracted to your voice."

A spike of adrenalin and anger sent my heart racing. I began to panic. The last time I was tied up like this was at North Sydney hospital when we’d been taken down to the morgue. So naturally, I was a little worried. But what did he mean by ‘they’re attracted to your voice’? The truck’s engine was making more noise than I ever could.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what he meant by that. And I couldn’t figure out why this person would feel the need to hit me. I mean, these were the first people we had seen in months. Shouldn’t they be happy to find other survivors? Being tied up and blindfolded and hit in the mouth wasn’t what I expected. Especially since they just saved us from a horde of infected.

The truck ride lasted a few hours. Nobody said another word. The only noise was the engine and the wind tearing through the loader.

Eventually the truck began to slow. The driver downshifted gears, crunching them a couple of times. We must’ve entered a town, I thought. The roar of the massive engine bounced of solid structures, buildings, houses. In my mind’s eye I imagined us driving into the center of a small country town.

The truck came to a stop and we were pushed off the back and taken inside a building of some sort. I was being led by the arm. As we moved inside our footsteps echoed loudly. Judging by that, I figured we were inside a building with hard floors, solid walls and high ceilings.

We had only walked a few feet when we were ordered on to our knees.

A voice spoke softly. It was the same voice that told me there was to be ‘no talking’ and presumably the same person who’d hit me.

"Father," he said. "We found more survivors. They were on the outskirts of Hunter. We found them surrounded at the Mackenzie’s place."

"Good work," an older man replied. His voice sounded gentle, patient. "It has been a busy night," he continued. "Put them in the vault. And please, untie them."

"Yes, Father."

"Oh and where are the others?" the older man asked. "They were due back before sunset."

"They’re still out there. They had to take the long way back. They ran into some resistance."

The older man took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Let us pray for their souls."

We were then led down a set of stairs and into a room. Thankfully we were untied. Whoever had been escorting us left the room, closing and locking what sounded like an extremely heavy door. We removed our blindfolds and then it dawned on us, we were inside a bank vault.

It looked like there were candles scattered in the corners of the vault. But then my eyes slowly adjusted and I realized they weren’t candles. They were glow sticks. In the absolute dark of the bank vault they actually gave off quite a bit of light.

Jack spoke first. "Well this is just great. Freakin brilliant. Why did we give up our guns?"

"They had us surrounded," Daniel said. "Out numbered, blinded. If we’d put up a fight, we wouldn’t have lasted five seconds."

"Besides, we’d be dead right now if they hadn’t shown up," Kenji added. "We owe them our lives."

"Is everyone all right?" I asked.

Everyone answered. They were all fine.

"What was that whole ‘no talking’ thing about?" Maria asked. "Was someone hit?"

"Yeah, that was me," I said.

Kenji came over. "They hit you?"

"Yeah. For talking, remember? ‘No talking means no goddamn talking’."

"Are you OK?" he asked as he checked my face.

"I’m fine," I lied. "Didn’t hurt that badly. Scared me more than anything."

"What a cheap shot," Jack said. "I know they saved us and all, but you can’t just go around hitting people. Especially someone who is blindfolded. And a girl!"

"They must have their reasons," Daniel said.

"No," Jack replied. "There is no excuse for hitting a girl."

"I’ve got bad feeling about this," Maria said. "I know that’s kind of a stupidly obvious thing to say. But this is crazy. Why did they tie us up? Why blindfold us? I mean, they saved our lives! Why the hell would they hit one of us? It doesn’t make any sense."

Maria was angry and tired. We all were. But at that moment, Maria broke down. "We haven’t seen any other survivors in weeks," she continued. "We’re on the same side!"

Jack moved over to Maria and gave her a hug and tried to calm her down as best he could.

"I wonder what that guy meant by ‘they’re attracted to your voice’." I said. "Do you think he was talking about the infected?"

"It’s possible," Kenji replied.

"But the truck’s engine was way louder than my voice. If anything was going to attract the attention of the infected it would’ve been the engine, right?"

"We can’t be certain," Daniel said. "No one knows for sure. They might be attracted to any kind of noise or they might be more attuned to human voices. No one knows."

"And besides, we’re guests here," Kenji added. "These people saved our lives. They’re offering us shelter. This is their house, their rules. If they tell us to keep quiet, we do as they say."

"I guess there are worse places than a bank vault to spend the night," I said.

As my eyes began slowly adjusting to the dim light of the glow sticks, I saw cash scattered all over the floor. There were all kinds of currencies. Australian, American, Euro, British pounds. There was even Gold bullion stacked up at the back of the vault. Safe deposit boxes lined the walls. There were two pallets of cash towards the far right corner. A symbol, a relic of a dying and crumbling civilization, I thought. I moved towards the pieces of gold, mesmerized and drawn to it. I picked one up. It was ridiculously heavy.

I was trying to read the inscription, on the gold bar when suddenly I felt something move in the corner of the vault.