Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (14 page)

I am shaking my
head and my whole body is shaking and Kenji is dead and I can’t take it
anymore. My watch beeps. It tells me that I am dying, that I have forty-nine
hours left.

But I don’t
care. I don’t care because Kenji is dead, and all of a sudden I have tunnel
vision, and the last thing I see before I pass out is the black monolithic
doorway of the labyrinth.

I am dying, but right now I am in Kenji’s basement. Brooklyn, New York.

It is dark.

There are candles around the
room.

Kenji is kneeling on the matted
floor. A ‘tatami mat’ is what he called it.

He is concentrating. He has a
serious, all business expression on his face. He looks older than what I
remember.

“What the hell happened?” I ask.

He opens his eyes. “What do you
mean?”

“At the outpost. You were
supposed to cover us. That was the plan. That was the deal. We were supposed to
run outside and activate the EMP field. You were supposed to cover us from the
gun tower. But you didn’t. You shot Maria. And then you just disappeared.”

“Do you really think I shot Maria?”

No
.

“No.”

“But someone shot her,” he says.
“Someone shot her with my rifle. She flew backwards. The air was crushed from
her lungs. She should’ve died. And she would’ve died if you hadn’t given her
your NBC suit.”

“Someone shot her,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You tell me,” he says.

“Ben?”

“Maybe.”

“No. Ben wouldn’t do that. He’s
one of the good guys.”

“Are you sure? He is a violent
man.”

“Yes, I’m sure. He is violent. He
is extreme. But he is good.”

“There was only one other person
there,” Kenji says. “Just one.”

The man who was locked up. Tied
up. Blindfolded. The man who performed emergency surgery on Ben. Cut the bullet
out of his chest. Stopped the bleeding. Saved his life.

We weren’t supposed to trust him.

We found a dying soldier at that
outpost. The last surviving soldier. He tried to warn us about the man he had
locked up in the infirmary. He told us not to trust him.

“Tariq,” I whisper.

“Yes. Tariq.”

“He is a liar,” the soldier said.
“He is one of them. Don’t believe a word he says.”

“Tariq saved Ben’s life,” I say.
“He warned us about the nano-swarms. He was helping us.”

He was helping us. Wasn’t he?

“Who is Tariq?” I whisper.

“This is the question you need to
ask.” Kenji says. “This is the question you need to answer.”

Who is Tariq?

He had dark skin. A trimmed black
beard. He wore glasses. He had scars on both sides of his face.

Scars.

He said he had worked for the Red
Cross. He said he was a research scientist. He said he was sent in after the
outbreak. He was sent in as part of Project Salvation. He was part of a
research team. He was there to help.

This is what he said.

Kenji closes his eyes.

I try and open mine. But my
eyelids are heavy.

When I do open my eyes, my vision
is blurry.
Someone is holding my wrist. They are feeling and searching for my pulse. The
person is speaking to me. Their voice is calm and soothing. It has an almost
hypnotic effect on me.

“Heart rate is
normal,” they say.

I am lying on my back. I can see
bright fluorescent lights. The person who was holding my wrist leaves the room.

I can hear voices. Familiar
voices saying some unfamiliar things.

Weird things.

Theories.

Madness.

But this madness is becoming more
and more normal.

Madness is normal. Normal is
madness.

I blink my eyes. I can finally
focus my vision.

I am lying on a table in the
prison cafeteria. Sitting with me, keeping me company, is Kim and Jack and
Harry. And a woman who I haven’t met.

“From what we can tell,” Harry
says. “They released the infected into the labyrinth.”

Jack shakes his head. “Why the
hell would they do that?”

“It’s a test. An experiment.”

“What?”

“They are trying to study them.
And we, the prisoners, we’re the bait. We’re part of it. We are the rats. It’s
like this weird, real life game of Pac-Man. But Instead of ghosts in the maze,
it’s infected zombies.”

“Pac-Man?”

“The video game,” Harry says.
“How old are you?”

“I know what Pac-Man is,” Jack
says. “I mean, how is this place anything like Pac-Man?”

“I just told you. It’s a maze.
The ghosts are zombies. We’re Pac-Man.”

“We’re Pac man? And what? We need
to collect cherries?”

“I honestly don’t know. No one
has survived in there. So maybe we need to collect cherries or whatever. Maybe
we need to solve it.”

“Kenji survived in there,” Jack
says.

“Well, yeah. But he’s been gone
for over five days now. He has ended up just like every other person who
thought they could run off and escape.”

Jack takes a deep breath. “So
what do you mean by solve it?”

“Solve the labyrinth,” Harry
answers. “Find our way out.”

“You think so?”

“Maybe.”

“You actually think it can be
solved?” Kim asks. “You think there is a way out?”

“I don’t know for sure. No one
knows for sure.”

“OK, so let’s say that someone
solves it,” Jack says. “Let’s say Kenji has solved it. What the hell is waiting
for him at the end?”

“I have no idea,” Harry answers.

“This is messed up,” Jack says.

Harry nods his head. “Yeah, no
kidding. Like I said, no one has ever come back for us. So we have no way of
knowing. Judging by the ramblings on the walls of Kenji cell, and the drawings,
I’d say the labyrinth is absolutely crawling with infected. And other things.
Not sure how many. My guess would be a lot. Maybe hundreds. God knows we can
hear them. That's why at night, when the black door opens, you make sure you
are in your cell. You make sure your cell door is closed and you make sure you
put a bed sheet over the bars.”

“A bed sheet?” Kim asks.

“So they can’t see you. That’s
why we’ve barricaded the stairwells at every level. So they can’t reach us on
the top floor. We reinforce them every day. Check them every day. We make sure
the fire escape ladders are fully retracted and secured. We don’t want anything
climbing their way up from the ground floor.”

“Have the infected ever made it
here?” Kim says.

“Yeah. If no one runs off into the
labyrinth, they always make it here. That’s why we’ve barricaded the
stairwells. They haven’t been able to climb up. And that’s why I know that
Kenji guy was crazy. He chose to live and sleep on the ground floor. No
barricades. Just the bars of his cell. On the nights that he actually stayed in
his cell, he would’ve been surrounded. They would’ve been swarming. Swarming
and reaching through the bars. All night. That is a messed up way to live.”

“Until they became distracted by
something else?” Jack says.

“Yeah. Exactly. Something or
someone else in the labyrinth. More people. More rats. More bait.”

I suddenly remember the teeth on
the ground outside Kenji’s cell. The blood and skin on the bars. Why the hell
was Kenji putting himself at risk? What the hell was he doing?

“The Oz virus is designed to find
life,” I whisper.

Kim is right next to me, she
leans over. “Hey, you’re awake!”

“How long have I been out for?” I
ask.

“A few hours,” Kim answers. “How
are you feeling?”

I check my watch. Forty-six hours
left. “I’m fine. I think.”

“So yeah,” Harry continues.
“Eventually, the infected go back into the labyrinth. Which means there must be
a reason for them to do so.”

“What reason?” I ask.

“Food. Hosts. People.”

“Maybe it’s the civilian prison?”
Kim suggests.

“Don't know. Don't care. As long
as they leave. As long as that door closes in the morning.”

“Do they always leave?” Jack
asks.

“Not always,” Harry answers.
“Sometimes they don’t leave. They stay on the ground floor. Trapped on the
ground floor. You have to spend all day in your cell. But like I said, they
usually run off. So we’ve always assumed that something else gets their
attention.”

“This is a crappy way to live,”
Jack says.

“What else are
we supposed to do? Awhile back, a few weeks ago, some of the other prisoners
got the idea that they could beat the labyrinth, find their way to freedom.
Didn’t work out so well for those guys.”

“They never came
back?” Kim asks.

“No. They’re
dead.”

“Or maybe they
found their way out,” Jack says.

“No. I’ve seen
some of the guys who tried to escape. I’ve seen them back here. Infected. So
yeah, I know for certain that they didn’t make it. And I know for certain that
we won’t make it. Our only chance of survival is to wait it out. This is a war
of attrition. We need to be patient. And what the hell is at the other end
anyway? More death? More infected? An airborne strain of the virus? A General
who has lost his mind? His death squad?”

Harry has a
depressingly good point. This prison is the best chance these people have of survival.
It is their home.

“We just have to
hope General Spears and his death squad leave us alone,” Harry says.

“Forget about
the General,” I say. “He’s dead.”

At least I think
he’s dead. What did Kim ask me earlier? Had I seen the body?

“Dead?” Harry asks.
“How?

“I don’t know
exactly. The infected stormed his compound. The inner-sanctum. And he had
injected himself with a concentrated dose of the Oz virus. So yeah, he’s dead.”

Harry is
confused. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because he had
gone absolutely insane. He had been pushed over the edge. The pressure screwed
him over. He thought he was a god or something. He thought he would survive.”

I sit up and
swing my legs off the table. I try and stand but immediately feel light headed.

Ben is there. He
grabs me and makes sure I don’t fall over.

A woman is there
as well. “I think you should take it easy for a while,” she says.

“This is Anna,”
Ben says. “She’s a nurse.”

“I’m fine,
really. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”
Anna asks. “You’re running a pretty high fever.”

“Yeah. I just
need some water. I need to see Kenji’s cell. I need to see what he wrote on the
walls.”

Anna hands me a
canteen of water.

Ben says, “I’ll
take her. You guys eat some food.”

There are no complaints
from Jack or Kim. I couldn’t see what they were eating but it looked like dry
cereal.

Ben leads me out
of the cafeteria. “Are you sure the General is dead?” he asks.

He asks this
question with disappointment in his voice. I’m guessing he is disappointed
because he is hell bent on getting his revenge. He wanted to make the General
pay for killing innocent people. The people that Ben had come to care about.

Ben wanted to
bring General Spears to justice. But he was not going to get the chance.

“Yeah,” I say.
“He’s dead. He has to be.”

“Good,” Ben
whispers. “I guess I’ll see him in hell.”

I picture
General Spears sitting on a throne in hell. Waiting for Ben to arrive. Waiting
for another showdown. Another rematch. An epic gladiatorial battle.

“So why did you
really come back?” I ask Ben. “Why did you fight General Spears, why did you
take him on? They could’ve shot you; they could’ve ended your life in a
heartbeat.”

“I told you.
These people took from me. They took everything. Initially, I was in the General’s
good books. My whole team was. We were good scavengers. We were useful. But
eventually General Spears started using the scavenger teams as bait. He started
sending them out to their deaths. He was killing us. Killing people who had
survived the Oz virus. Strong people. Good, decent people. He began sentencing
us to death. That is why I came back. That is why I chose to fight him. And
it's why I'm going to finish it. I'm going to end him. His death squad. His
regime. Everything.”

“I told you, the
General is dead.
”

“Did you see his
body?”

There’s that
question again. It was like the General had scared people into believing he was
actually invincible. That he was actually a god.

“Doesn’t matter,”
Ben continues. “I need to completely eradicate his presence, his rule, his
legacy. His memory. This includes anyone who served under him. The death squad.
If they're allowed to live, to wield power…”