Torn Apart (10 page)

They looked like Special Forces
soldiers.

According to the patches on their uniforms some
of them were Para-troopers. Airborne.

These guys were the elite. They were the best
of the best. And they had been executed. I had to take several deep
breaths to calm myself down. Each of the Para-troopers was wearing
a parachute harness. As I moved through the carriage, I could see
that they had all been shot multiple times.

There was blood everywhere. And bullet casings.
They were concentrated at the doorway that connected the second
carriage to the front carriage, like someone had stood there and
unloaded magazine after magazine at the soldiers, while they were
sitting down.

L
oaded
bullets littered the floor as well. They were piled up in
heaps.

Again, I had to take deep breaths. I had to
breathe through my mouth and concentrate and focus so I didn’t
throw up. I had to distance myself and think about something else,
so it didn’t feel like I was crawling over a pile of dead
soldiers.

I moved slowly through the train. I moved up to
the door that connected the carriages. I peered through the
window.

I was not prepared for what I saw.

I immediately ducked back down so that I was
hidden. I put my hand over my mouth so that I didn’t
scream.

This is what I saw.

I saw Maria.

Her hands were tied to the hand railing at the
far end of the front carriage, near the driver’s cabin. Her face
was streaked with tears.

Standing menacingly at the other end of the
carriage, right near where I was crouched, was a man. He was
shirtless, wearing military style cargo pants. He was wearing a gas
mask. The goggles of the mask were tinted black. I couldn’t see his
face.

The mask gave him the impression that he was an
alien. Or a monster. Something inhuman. His entire upper body was
covered in scars. Cuts. Burn marks. I couldn’t tell if they were
self inflicted or if someone had done that to him.

He had a number of rifles lined up in the aisle
and he was standing over a pile of bullets. He was taking them out
of the rifle’s magazines.

One by one.

Maria screamed again and I actually jumped. I
crouched down and I waited a few seconds, keeping perfectly still.
Then I prepared myself, and I looked again.

“
Please!” Maria begged. “Please,
don’t hurt me. Please.”

The man in the gas mask ignored Maria. He
continued unloading the ammo magazines, flicking each individual
bullet onto the floor of the carriage.

“
I am immune,” Maria said. “I'm
special. Look. I was bitten. See? I didn’t turn. I didn't turn into
a monster.”

“
Special?” the man said. “You are
not special. You are just a vessel. Your body.”

The man’s voice sounded weird as he spoke
through the air filters of the gas mask. It sounded unnerving,
almost mechanical, like he had artificial lungs or
something.

“
I swear to you,” Maria continued.
“I'm telling the truth. I swear! Please! Please don't kill me. I am
immune. They can make a cure, a vaccine from my blood.”

The man looked up at Maria. “A cure? For what?
Tell me, what do you want to cure?”

“
This plague. The Oz
virus.”

“
You think you can save people? You
think you can save the human race?”

“
I...I don't know. Just please... I
have to try.”

The man shook his head slowly. “You do not want
to save anyone.”

“
What?”

“
You do not want to save anyone. You
just want to save yourself.”

“
No. No. I want to help. I can
help.”

“
No,” he repeated slowly. “You do
not want to save the human race. Nor should you. It is better this
way. The world is on fire. The world is burning. And it is
glorious.”

“
What? What the hell are you talking
about?”

“
I am talking about a purging fire.
I am talking about starting over. I am talking about creating
history. For too long we have fought the old wars. For too long we
have wasted lives. Our children. Our sons. Our daughters. Our
families. So many families have been wasted. But if we create a new
history…”

The man in the gas mask trailed off. He was
nodding his head like he was agreeing with himself and everything
that he was saying.

“
This is how we become legendary,”
he continued. “Do you think your blood can save us? Do you think
your blood can cure the world of this sickness? No. You are wrong.
The only way to have our freedom, the only way to have our
salvation, is to burn everything to the ground. Burn the old
empires. Burn the old memories and the old ways. We purge. We start
over. We start a fire. And we watch the world burn. And then and
only then will we be free. Only then, will we have our
salvation.”

Maria was shaking her head. She was crying
heavily. I think she had given up on trying to bargain with him.
And so had I.

I decided right then and there that I would
need to kill this man. I would need to kill him to save Maria. Take
a life to save a life.

But I would need a weapon.

“
Look at these weapons!” The man in
the gas mask shouted.

And for a split second, I thought he had read
my mind, or maybe I was accidentally thinking out loud or
something. For a split second, I thought that he was standing over
me.

But he wasn’t.

He was walking slowly towards Maria. He was
holding a hunting knife.

“
This is what I am talking about,”
he said as he waved the knife back and forth. “I am talking about
weapons. Instruments of evil. Instruments of ill omen. We are
taught to use weapons only when necessary. They can take life. They
can destroy it.”

He held up the knife in front of Maria. “The
blade. The knife. The sword. Folded metal for strength. It was
forged in a fire. Under immense heat. The serrations of the blade
increase the damage and severity of the wound. The ripping and
tearing of flesh. A messy wound is a deadly wound.”

He was getting closer to Maria. I would need to
make my move soon.

He took out a handgun and pointed it to all the
other guns he had lined up. The guns he had taken from the dead
soldiers.

“
A gun is even more efficient.
Deadly and lethal. A bullet is fired at such high velocity that it
completely destroys whatever it touches. But it is limited. It is
limited by the man firing the gun. It is limited by his physical
abilities. His conscience. By ammunition.”

Maria was still shaking her head, tears
continued to streak down her face.

“
One evil man can make millions of
people suffer,” he continued. “One evil.”

The man lowered the gun and then raised the
knife so that it looked like he was looking at his own reflection
in the blade.

“
If you remove this evil, you give
life to the millions of people who have suffered. In this regard,
weapons are to be considered the divine will of the Gods. In this
regard, they are to be considered necessary.”

I scanned the immediate area, looking,
searching for a weapon. Anything. I would’ve settled for a rock or
a sharp stick at that point. Not a fair fight but I didn't care. I
needed to save Maria.

“
Bombs,” he continued. “Warheads.
Heat and pressure. Nuclear. Weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of
fire. A fire burns. Rages. Unsupervised. A fire is alive. It moves.
It evolves. As long as there is fuel. A weapon that is alive. A
weapon that evolves. A weapon that uses humans as fuel. No
ammunition. No limitation. A weapon that is alive. A weapon that
will end suffering. A weapon that will end evil. A weapon that will
give life.”

Maybe I could bluff him, I thought. Fake it.
Point my rifle at his head. Pretend it was loaded.

No. That won’t cut it.

Before I really knew what I was doing, I had
slid the empty magazine out of my rifle. I threw it at the far end
of the carriage and shattered the rear window. The glass broke and
it sounded like the loudest thing in the world. I could almost feel
the man in the gas mask turn and look, like I could feel his gaze.
Feel the heat from his breath.

A few seconds later, I heard his boots, his
footsteps as he came to investigate.

I quickly moved out of the carriage, back out
the way I had come in. I hid underneath the train, in the
darkness.

I could hear the man in the gas mask as he
opened the connecting door and stepped into the
carriage.

He began talking to himself. “I should have
known,” he said. “You old warriors. You are strong. You are
mysterious and powerful. You are the pinnacle of human achievement
and endurance. You have carved your bodies; you have built
yourselves. You have strengthened yourselves and pushed yourselves
to the absolute limit of human capabilities…”

I slowly moved out from under the train and
moved back against the wall of the tunnel, making sure I was still
hidden in the dark.

The man in the gas mask began slowly walking
through the carriage. He took out an ammo mag from his pocket. He
loaded the rifle he was carrying. And then he walked through the
carriage, putting one bullet into the head of each fallen
soldier.

I guess maybe he thought they were infected. Or
maybe he thought one of them was still alive or something. Either
way, he was making double sure that they were really
dead.

My distraction had worked. I had bought myself
some time. There were maybe twenty or thirty soldiers. And he was
being extremely methodical and thorough, aiming carefully for each
head.

I moved towards the front carriage. Made my way
to Maria. Her head was lowered. She didn’t see me until I was right
next to her.

When she saw me, I had to hold my hands over
her mouth so she didn’t scream or cry out or say anything. I had to
tell her repeatedly to keep quiet. I pleaded with my eyes for her
to keep quiet.

From the rear carriage we could hear each
single gunshot.

Bang.

Then a five second pause as he methodically
walked through the carriage. Re-killing the soldiers. Making
sure.

A bullet in the head.

Bang.

Maria appeared to have calmed down enough so I
could speak to her.

I removed my hands from her mouth.

“
Shh,” I whispered. “It’s going to
be all right. Everything is going to be fine. We just need to get
you out of here. We can hide in the tunnels. We can make
it.”

I talked to her and I whispered reassuring
things. I had no idea if I was lying or not.

Bang.

The gunshot made us jump.

“
Untie me,” she said. “Cut me loose.
Let’s go.”

Her hands were double tied. Her wrists were
bound with a plastic zip tie. And then they were tied to the
railing of the train.

I would need a knife to cut her loose. And the
only knife I had, was the blunt knife that Kenji had given
me.

I really needed to upgrade.

I tried to cut through anyway. I got
nowhere.

“
Come on,” Maria whispered.
“Hurry.”

Suddenly the gunshots had stopped. The silence
was unsettling and frightening. It meant that the man in the gas
mask was finished re-killing the soldiers. He would be back very
soon.

I made eye contact with Maria. “I’m sorry. I
need to hide. It’s the only way.”

“
What? No. Don’t leave me.
Don’t.”

She began to cry again. She was
terrified.

“
I’ll be right back. I’m not going
far. I am coming back for you.”

I scrambled around on my knees, searching the
pile of guns and ammunition for something I could use.
Unfortunately all of the bullets for the rifles had been removed
from their magazines. I did not have time to reload each one. But
luckily, I found a shotgun.

And one, single shell.

Just the one.

“
What are you going to do?” Maria
asked.

“
I’m going to kill this
bastard.”

Maria was shaking. She was freaking out. She
didn’t want me to leave. But I had no choice.

I loaded the shotgun with the single
shell.

The only way I was going to kill this psycho
was if I did it from the shadows.

Like Ben said. Strike from the shadows. Strike
hard. Strike fast.

I’d only get one chance.

I hid in the driver’s cabin. I kept the door open, hoping he
wouldn’t notice. All I had to do was step out, fire the shotgun,
and that would be the end of him.

The downside to this plan is that I would have
to wait until he got nice and close. Kenji once told me that a
shotgun was only effective as a close-range weapon. A shotgun shell
was crammed full with ball bearings that sprayed outwards when you
fired. The further away the target was when you fired, the less
concentrated the blast would be.