Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (20 page)

“Oh no,” Kenji whispers. “The shotgun. Too loud. We’re being too loud. They
followed us. They found us.”

“Where did that
come from?” I ask.

“Up ahead.
They’re close.”

We run. And it’s
at that moment we hear the howling, moaning, scream of the infected. The noises
echo off the walls of the maze and the catacombs. It is impossible to tell
where they are.

There is no time
to think things through. No time to plan.

The infected
have arrived.

We make it to
another burial chamber. A circular room. More dead buried in the walls. But
apart from the dead bodies, the room is empty. The others are nowhere to be
seen.

We move into the
next room. And now we are no longer alone. There is a group of infected. They
are feeding. Kenji holds me back.

But I need to
see.

Who are they
feeding on? Who?

There are four
infected people.

They are feeding
on one woman.

Anna?

Kim?

Did the death
squad throw Kim down here?

No, they
wouldn’t do that. Would they?

Kenji is backing
away, backing out of the room, trying to pull me with him.

But I need to be
sure.

Suddenly the
woman looks right at me. She is still alive.

It is not Kim.

It is not Anna.

And I am
relieved that this person who is dying, this person who is being eaten alive,
is not someone I know.

This is the main
emotion I am feeling right now.

Relief
.

We back away
slowly.

The group of
infected people haven’t seen us yet. They are content to feed. So we let them.

But the woman
has seen us.

The woman is
looking right at us.

“Help me,” she
whispers. “Please.
Pleeeease
. Kill me. Do it.”

But we can’t
help her and we can’t kill her because we are unarmed. We can’t do a goddamn
thing. The only thing we can do is run. And this is what we should be doing. We
should be running.

We should be
running fast and far. But we are not running. We are frozen. Our feet are
nailed right into the ground.

“Go,” Kenji
whispers. “We have to go.”

We take one
step.

And then big Ben
enters the room.

And before Kenji
can stop him, before Kenji can do anything, Ben uses the shotgun to kill the
four infected people and the woman who was being eaten alive.

Everything
happens quickly and the blast of the shotgun is incredibly loud, but in my head
all five shots sound muffled and distant.

“They’re here,”
Ben says. “They’re all over the place. We
gotta
go.”

We can hear the infected, and they sound like they are all around us. Right
throughout the catacombs. They sound like they are getting closer.

We move. We
finally begin running.

Kenji is in
front, leading the way. Thomas is right on his heels, followed by me, Jack, and
Anna.

As per usual,
Ben is bringing up the rear.

Suddenly, Anna
trips and falls, and when she falls, she reaches forward and brings down Jack.

I turn around to
see what the hell is going on.

And what I see
is Anna struggling.

She is pale.

Shivering.

Sweaty.

I see blood.

I see blood
everywhere.

Jack brushes
himself off and gets to his knees. Kenji and Thomas stop and come back.

“Anna, are you
OK?” I ask. “What the hell happened?”

She waves me
off. “I’m fine. I...”

She can’t
finish. She can’t speak.

Ben finally
catches up to us and the look on his face says it all. It is a look of
acceptance. It is the look of a field surgeon on the battlefield who knows what
a lost cause looks like.

Thomas stands
over Anna and he is the first one to say what we’re all thinking. "She's
been bitten."

“No,” Anna
whispers. “I wasn't bitten. I swear.”

Her back and her
right shoulder are covered in blood. But it doesn't look like a bite wound.

“So what the
hell happened?” Thomas asks.

Anna looks at
her shoulder. It is only then she realizes how bad it is. It is only then she
realizes how much blood she has lost. “The monster. Its claws. Grazed my
shoulder. It's just a scratch. Just a scratch.”

Thomas does not
believe her. “A scratch? You really think so?”

“It happened so
fast,” she says. “It might’ve been the rocks falling on me.”

“It's not
just
a scratch,” Jack says. “This is a
deep laceration. This will need stitches. A lot of stitches. It looks like
Freddy Kruger has taken a swipe at you.”

Ben places his
shotgun on the ground and kneels down next to Anna. He rips the sleeves off her
shirt and tries to use them to stop the bleeding.

“I’m fine,” Anna
says. “This is nothing. Barely a flesh wound. I’m fine.”

She keeps
telling us she is fine.

But she is not.

Thomas is
shaking his head. “We can't risk it. We have to take care of her.”

“Shut the hell
up,” Ben says.

“You know I’m
right. She’s going to turn any goddamn minute now.”

Ben stands and
moves over to Thomas. “If you don’t stop talking, I will break your jaw.”

A scream from
the darkness makes us all jump. It could’ve come from anywhere within the
tunnels of the catacombs. Thomas is looking all around. He is becoming more and
more erratic. He is scared and nervous. He is jumpy as hell and paranoid, but
the son of a bitch has a point.

Anna could be
infected.

She could be
about to turn into an undead monster.

She could be
about to attack us with single minded aggression and unimaginable ferocity.

All of this
could happen in a heartbeat.

We would need to
make a decision on her life. We would need to make this decision right now. And
we would need to live with the consequences of this decision, for the rest of
our lives.

I look at Anna
and I can’t help but be reminded of my mother. She is a nurse. She was left
behind. She was betrayed.

She is so dead.

Ben has managed
to staunch the flow of the bleeding. But it is too little too late.

Anna’s face, her
skin. She is so pale.

She is
shivering.

I want to give
her a few more minutes. I want to give her the respect she deserves, but we do
not have minutes to give.

“What do we do?”
Thomas asks. “We have to do
something
.”

“We should give
her time,” Jack says.

“We don’t have
time!”

“We’ll take her
to the research lab,” Kenji says. “There’s a medical facility there. It’s her
only chance.”

Maybe she’s
immune, I think to myself. Like Maria.

We would never
have known if Maria was immune if we had just killed her.

“Are you going
to carry her?” Thomas asks.

“I’ll carry
her,” Ben says.

Thomas can’t
believe it. “Are you crazy? What if she actually is infected?”

“We don’t know
that.”

“I can’t believe
you are prepared to take that risk. I can’t believe you are prepared to risk
all of our lives. You are risking the entire group for one person. Do you
realize how insane that is? Do you realize how stupid that is?”

I know the odds
are not good.

I know she is probably
dying.

I know she will
only slow us down. But we can’t just give up on her.

I know if she’s
infected, she will turn.

Ben walks away
from Thomas and turns to Jack. “Give me your t-shirt. Need to stop the
bleeding.”

But before Jack
can take his shirt off, and before we can stop the bleeding, Thomas lunges
forward.

In his hand is a
knife that I don’t think any of us knew he had.

It was
concealed. It was hidden.

And now it is in
his hand.

And now it is
running and slicing through Anna’s throat.

And there is
nothing we can do to stop Thomas because he is too quick.

It happens in a
heartbeat.

We are all
stunned as Thomas slashes Anna’s neck and picks up Ben’s shotgun and runs off.

He does this
quickly. Before anyone can stop him. Before Kenji or Ben can tackle him to the
ground.

He is a snake
striking his prey.

And he just made
the decision on Anna’s life. In a heartbeat.

He chose death.

Anna slumps over
on the ground with blood pouring from her throat.

And I feel like
I am watching my mother die.

Ben puts his
massive hand over the wound, trying once again to stop the bleeding. And once
again he is failing.

Jack is in
shock. So is Kenji. They are both frozen. Mouths wide open. They can’t believe
what has just happened.

Ben is trying to
stop the bleeding. But it is utterly hopeless.

And I have just
watched my mother die. She was not given a chance.

They left her
for dead.

They betrayed
her.

They locked her
up. Slit her throat. Fed her to the monsters.

She was a nurse.
She stayed behind to help. It was her job to help. But they made the decision
on her life in a heartbeat.

Before I can
stop myself, before Kenji or Jack can stop me, I run after Thomas.

Revenge is on my
mind and in my heart.

I am going to
kill Thomas.

We are our own worst enemy. And there are no monsters in this world except the
ones we create.

I am running
blindly through the catacombs. I see Thomas up ahead. I see the torch on the
shotgun. The shotgun that he stole from Ben. I suddenly realize that if I lose
him, I will be plunged into darkness. I will be completely, totally blind. So I
lock onto him like a heat seeking missile of revenge and hatred.

I am going to
kill Thomas or I am going to die trying.

This is pure and
simple. This is the world we live in now.

We can’t go
back.

“Rebecca! Stop!”

This is Kenji
yelling at me from somewhere behind me. But I can’t stop now. I won’t stop. And
we can’t go back.

Thomas is
deceptively fast and I have to dig deep to keep up with him. As we run through
the twisting tunnels, I am constantly bumping into the walls of rock,
constantly grazing my arms and elbows and shoulders.

But I don’t
care.

I don’t care
because Thomas murdered Anna, and someone just like him killed my mother.

Eventually the
tunnels of the catacombs open up. I have arrived at a set of stairs. Thomas has
disappeared from view, but there is only one way he could’ve gone.

Up.

I climb the
stairs quickly and when I get to the top, I realize I have arrived at the other
end of the arena. Directly in front of me is what appears to be a mansion. A
luxurious mansion. It’s at least three stories high. A ten foot wall surrounds
the house. The wall is topped with razor wire. I guess it’s more of a compound.
Maybe it’s another training facility for the death squad.

I see a torch
moving back and forth in the front windows of the mansion. Thomas has already
made it inside. He then fires the shotgun and the muzzle flash is blindingly
bright.

I run towards
the house and the torchlight and the muzzle flash. I make it to what appears to
be the main entrance, the main gateway. I walk through and close the gate
behind me.

I make my way
inside the house. The massive front door is wide open.

I am not
prepared for what I see inside.

I am not
prepared for the stench of rotting flesh.

As I walk through the large
double doors of the front entrance, and make my way inside the extremely grand
and extremely over the top foyer, I realize that this place is from a crazy
person’s nightmare.

It is a mansion. With endless
hallways. With countless rooms branching off.

There is a large stairway
directly in front of me that leads to the higher floors.

Hanging from the ceiling in the
foyer is the largest chandelier I have ever seen.

I have no idea what a luxurious
mansion like this is doing in a place such as the labyrinth.

But the reason this place is from
someone’s nightmare?

There are bodies. In the foyer.
On the stairs. In each of the rooms that branch off from the foyer, and
probably in all the other rooms.

There are so many goddamn bodies.
And these bodies are all dressed in full battle armor, full military getup.
Most of the bodies are decomposed beyond all recognition. And most of the
bodies are secured to the floor, either with a pole or a stake of some kind.
This gives the impression that they are standing up. It gives the impression
that they are still alive. That they are looking right at me.

Some of the bodies are hanging
from the ceilings.

Some of them are swaying back and
forth because Thomas has just run through here and he probably bumped into them.

“Thomas! Where
the hell are you?”

Suddenly Thomas
appears at the top of the staircase.

He hasn’t seen
me yet because he is not facing me. He walks backwards down the stairs.

Four infected
people stumble out of a room and Thomas shoots them in the head. He kills them,
like he killed Anna. Without a second thought. Without any respect.

He turns and
walks down the stairs and then he sees me. He aims the shotgun right at my
head. Right at my face.

But he does not
pull the trigger.

I don’t know why
he doesn’t.

Maybe he wants
to defend himself and his name and his actions. Maybe he wants to make sure
people know that what he did and what he’s done, was the right thing to do.

The heroic thing
to do.

“She was
infected,” Thomas says. “I had to do it. You know I did!”

I stare at
Thomas and I study his features. His face. His eyes. I pay close attention to
the way he speaks. I need to remember these things. I need to remember because
this is what a monster really looks like. This is what a monster really sounds
like.

I had already
learnt this lesson. But I need to learn it again.

Thomas pumps the
shotgun, ejecting a spent shell. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“She was hurt,”
I say. “She needed our help.”

“She was dying.
She was already dead.”

“You don’t know
that. You didn’t give her a chance. You betrayed her. You just... you just
killed her!”

Was it a
scratch? Was she bitten? Was she infected? I had no idea. But Thomas had no
right to end her life like that.

No respect. No
humanity.

“You killed her
like she was an animal,” I say. “Like she was nothing. Like she meant nothing!”

I am yelling and
we are being way too loud.

“She was already
starting to turn,” Thomas says. “She was a threat. She had to be dealt with.
You know I’m right.”

I don’t know. I
don’t know a goddamn thing.

“She would’ve
done the same thing to me if the roles were reversed,” Thomas says. “And I’d
expect her to. I would want her to. If I’m infected, kill me. This is the world
we live in now. Don’t you understand? I’m not the bad guy here. I’m just doing
what had to be done.”

“What had to be
done? For the last time, we had no idea if she had been bitten. We had no
goddamn clue. She needed our help. She needed stitches!”

“I saw the
monster,” he says, pausing, hesitating,
thinking
.
“Yeah, I saw the monster’s claws graze her shoulder. And then we ran into a
group of infected people in the catacombs. She wrestled with one before Ben had
a chance to kill them.”

He is lying, and
he is really good at it.

“Anna was
infected,” he continues. “I’m looking right at you, I’m being honest. I swear.
I swear on my life.”

Thomas is lying,
like General Spears lied, like George the Warden lied, like Tariq lied.

And we are our
own worst enemy. And there are no monsters in this world except the ones we
create.

I take a step
forward, ready to charge, ready to pounce. I don’t even have a weapon but I
don’t care.

I am fed up and
I am too goddamn angry.

“Stop right
there,” Thomas says. “I will shoot you. I will kill you.”

I believe him.
But I don’t care.

I take another
step forward.

And Thomas takes
a step back.

“I don’t have to
explain myself to you,” he says. “I don’t have to justify myself to you. You’re
just a kid. What the hell do you know!?”

We have both
been yelling. We are both being way too loud. And Thomas has been firing the
shotgun. He has been wasting ammo and drawing attention.

High above us,
the massive chandelier moves slightly and swings gently back and forth.

Something moves
upstairs, and this in turn causes the chandelier to move and twinkle. As a
reflex, Thomas points the shotgun up at the chandelier, and the torch on the
underside of the barrel is reflected in all those shards of crystal.

An infected man
emerges from somewhere upstairs. It is running fast. It practically launches
itself off the top of the stairs, towards us.

Thomas shoots
the infected man, causing its head to explode, like he just took a shot at a
ripe watermelon. The infected man falls down the stairs and then Thomas turns
the gun back on me.

And then he
pulls the trigger.

But he is out of
ammo.

And I say,
“You’re a goddamn monster.”

And I want to
kill him.

I imagine myself
killing him with my bare hands. Strangling him. Choking him.

But none of
these fantasies come to fruition.

Another infected
person runs down the stairs. It always surprises me how fast they can move.
They look like death, they look like corpses. Yet they can move so freakishly
fast.

Thomas does not
have a chance to react. He is looking at the shotgun. He is wondering why he
has run out of ammo. He doesn’t even see the infected man coming for him, and I
don’t warn him.

Thomas is
tackled to the ground. He is bitten. He is being eaten alive.

And I watch.

Thomas tries to
fight it off, but he can’t. He is helpless.

His neck has
been ripped open and then he reaches out for me. “Help me! Oh God, help!”

On the ground,
near my feet, I find a metal stake that had previously been used to secure a
dead body to the floor.

I pick up the
metal stake and I drive it through the skull of the infected person.

I kick the now
lifeless corpse off of Thomas.

And Thomas is
now holding his throat. He is trying desperately to stop the bleeding but it is
utterly hopeless, and I think that maybe this is some kind of sick poetic
justice.

I think about
putting the metal stake through his head. But I don’t. I watch him bleed to
death.

I watch him take
his last breath. I watch him choke on his own blood.

And I start to
believe in some of the things the man in the gas mask said to me. I realize
that we can never go back to the way things were. I realize that I will never
go back.

We have to go
forward.

We have to
create a new world. A better world. A stronger world.

Eventually, I
raise the metal stake and jam it through Thomas’s skull just to make sure he doesn’t
turn.