Torn Apart (20 page)

She kept saying this. She kept reassuring
us.

And I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel
happy. And I should’ve felt happy. I mean, after not knowing if Kim
was OK, or if she was hurt, or even alive, not knowing for so long,
we had finally found her. She had sacrificed her body for us. She
had literally taken a bullet; put her life on the line for
us.

She had survived against all odds.

I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been
relieved.

But I wasn’t.

I was afraid.

Something was wrong.

I looked at her arm again. The bullet wound was
practically gone.

“
Can we talk to the General?” Maria
asked. “Do you think he’ll help us?”

“
So many questions!” Kim said. “One
at a time. Yes and yes. Maybe. Truthfully, I’m not sure when we’ll
be able to talk to him. You see, we’ve had a rough time these past
couple of weeks. And right now, with the containment failure and
the outbreak and the Code Black and the Lockdown, it’s really not
the best time.”

“
Not the best time?” I
said.

“
Yeah, well, we’ve lost access to
the research facility. It’s overrun. To get in there, we’d need to
clear it out. By force. To do that, we’d need to use the General’s
best men. And I’m not sure he’d be willing to do that at the
moment.”

“
What?” I asked. “Why
not?”

“
There have been a few assassination
attempts on the General’s life. As a result, he’s surrounded
himself with a squad of Special Forces soldiers. Twenty-four seven
guard. Tough bastards. Just look at them. You wouldn’t want to mess
with these guys.”

“
But we need to do this,” I said.
“We could make a goddamn cure.”

“
I know. I know. I’ll talk to him.
And then you can talk to him. And then you listen to him. Make sure
you listen. He wants to help. He’s the only one left who’s fighting
this war. He’s the only military commander left. Everyone else has
abandoned the cause. Retreated. Wrote Australia off as a loss. But
not the General. He will fight until his dying breath. And he will
win. It’s just that, with everything going on. The Lockdown. The
outbreak. Like I said, he’s not himself at the moment. He’s
angrier. At himself mostly,” she pointed up to the hanging bodies.
“You see? And sometimes his punishments are severe. But he has to
make examples. He has to. It's what great leaders do. It's what
lions do. And I’m sorry you have to see that. But let me explain.
They were soldiers, followers who questioned the authority of the
General. He had to do it. But he just needs time to get his mind
back. To get focused.”

“
Get his mind back?” I said. “And
what if he doesn’t? What then? If he can’t help us, if Doctor
Hunter can’t help us, then we need to get the hell out of
here.”

“
Nah, you can’t leave. Not yet. And
don’t worry. The General will come good. I mean, he is good. He’s
just isolated at the moment. He’s been down here in the dark for
three months now, you know? But don’t worry, he’ll come out of his
shell. This is good news after all. Maria. You don’t know how
important you are. It’s a miracle you’re here. Divine intervention.
You. You will bring him back.”

She paused, like she was thinking about
something, remembering something. “Let’s go and see him,” she
said.

“
Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked.
“Is he… is he dangerous? Has he gone mad?”

“
Mad? No. He’s not mad. Dangerous?
Yes. He is dangerous. But that’s a good thing. You need to be
dangerous in this world. If you’re not dangerous then you’re weak.
You’re as good as dead. But he’s not mad or crazy or anything like
that. How could you say that? He chose to stay here. Stay behind
when everyone else left. The rest of the military has given up but
he will not give up. He will not surrender. He will not be
defeated. He is stronger than anyone I have ever met.”

Again, I wanted to believe her.

“
Come on,” she said. “We can’t stay
out in the open. Let’s go.”

Kim turned and walked back through the
soldiers. She looked at one of the men and nodded her head and gave
a little signal.

The soldiers then stepped forward and
handcuffed us. They even cuffed Ben, who had been weirdly quiet
this whole time.

They slipped black hoods over our heads,
blindfolding us, taking us prisoner.

My pulse began to race. This wasn’t how this
was supposed to go down. “Kim! What the hell are you
doing?”

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s for
your own protection.”

We were led off the pier. Wooden planks under our feet gave way to
dirt, gave way to rock.

“
Where are you taking us?” Maria
asked. “What’s going on?”

“
You have to be quiet,” Kim
answered. “This place, it’s like a holy, spiritual place. You can’t
talk unless you’re spoken too. It’s a rule.”

I was getting more and more worried about Kim.
They had done something to her. I was sure of it. They had changed
her. And everything she’d told us about the General and everything
that crazy soldier had told us, led me to believe that the General
had gone bat crap insane. He had people and corpses strung up from
the light posts on the pier for crying out loud. If that’s not
madness then I don’t know what is. My only hope at that point was
that he would recognize how vitally important Maria was. She was
absolutely essential to stopping the spread of the Oz virus and
saving the world.

Hopefully he would understand this.

I had already come to terms with the fact that
if I survived this meeting, it would be pure luck. But I knew that
my life was not really important.

We came to a stop.

“
We’re here,” Kim
whispered.

Kim removed our hoods.

“
I’m sorry we had to tie you up and
blind fold you,” she said. “I’m only doing it because he told me
to. He’d get angry otherwise. And we don’t want that.”

The soldiers removed Ben and Doctor Hunter’s
hoods as well.

They forced them to their knees at
gunpoint.

Kim then stood between Maria and me and took us
by the hand. She had led us into another cavern. The natural rock
formations made this place look like some sort of ancient temple.
Then again, it could’ve been the gates to hell.

Military equipment was scattered around the
cave. Ammunition caches. Computer monitors and radar or satellite
surveillance equipment. The technology was mixed in with the
ancient formations of rock. It appeared that the remaining soldiers
and the General had moved their equipment here to this cave. Fallen
back to this point when the outbreak had occurred. They were hiding
here. Hiding from the infected and from death.

At the far end of the cave was an entire wall
of monitors. The wall was at least twenty feet high. It was hard to
see from where we stood, but they appeared to show black and white
surveillance images of the desert. Perhaps these images were from
the drone aircraft, I thought.

I noticed the other walls of the cavern were
covered in Aboriginal paintings.

Big bright patterns.

Paintings of giant fish. And crocodiles. And
snakes.

Behind us, large steel blast doors slowly began
closing. Sliding into place. It was then I noticed a group of
people were standing at the rear of the cavern. They were covered
head to toe in a kind of white paint. They carried spears. A few
seconds later I realized they were a tribe of Aboriginals. I had no
idea what they were doing in this place.

“
Who are these people?” I asked
Kim.

“
Shh. The General saved them. Took
them in.”

Kim then shook her head, telling me not to
speak. She had a look of fear in her eyes. She motioned forward
with her head to the wall of monitors at the far end of the cave.
Sitting behind a desk, in front of these monitors, was a
man.

He was staring up at the images of the
desert.

Watching.

It was the General.

He then stood and walked towards us. He was a
tall man. He had long legs and freakishly long arms. He was wearing
military style cargo pants and military boots. He was shirtless.
His upper body was covered in stripes of camouflage paint. His
whole body was extremely muscular. He was almost as big as Ben. He
had short grey hair and a short grey beard. He was old but he
appeared to be in the best shape of his life. Like an Olympic
weight lifter or gymnast. He was all muscle. Not an ounce of fat.
He was an intimidating man. I could immediately see why people were
afraid of him. Why he was the undisputed leader of this
Fortress.

He knelt down in front of us on one knee. He
placed his hand on the rock floor. “This is their land,” he said,
referring to the Aboriginal tribe. “And we have destroyed it. But
they can save it. They can teach us how to live again. When there
is no society, when there is no power of any kind. They will take
us in. All the families and children who survive this war. They
will look after us and teach us how to live and be
free.”

It was at that moment, Ben decided to speak up.
Like I said, he had been weirdly quiet since we had arrived at the
pier.

I now know why.

He was waiting for his time to confront the
General. He was preparing himself mentally. And now he was
ready.

Ben had told me earlier, that the General had
taken from him. Taken his freedom.

For this, he wanted revenge.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Ben had come to
care about the people down here. The other survivors. The other
scavengers. And Ben blamed the General for their deaths.

Ben stood, ignoring the rifles pointed at his
head. “What do you know about freedom?” he asked.

The General remained kneeling, his head was
lowered. “I know more about freedom than most other living
souls.”

Ben snapped the chain of his hand cuffs like a
piece of string. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about
freedom.”

The general stood to meet the challenge. They
were eye to eye. “I know that true peace can only be achieved
through war and conflict. True peace is suffering. All life, all
existence, is suffering.”

The soldiers closed in on Ben but the general
waved them back. They obeyed and lowered their rifles.

Ben raised his fists and threw a series of
powerful punches at the General. The General took the body blows
while protecting his head.

He then countered, grabbing Ben by the neck and
throwing him to the ground.

Kim pulled Maria and me away to a safe
distance.

“
Your anger has given you strength,”
the General said. “It has given you strength for a long time. But
it is not enough. It will never be enough.”

Ben jumped to his feet and charged. The General
stood firm. The two of them grappled and exchanged blows. The
General finally got the upper hand. He flipped Ben over onto his
back, slamming him down on the rocks.

“
Your anger is mistaken,” the
General said. “You think I killed your friends? No. I saved your
friends. I saved them from starvation. I saved them from
infection.”

Ben slowly got to his knees. The General
circled him.

“
You murdered them!” Ben said. “You
slaughtered them all. You condemned everyone. You had no right. No
right.”

The General moved quick, too quick for someone
of his age. He stomped down on Ben’s head. He launched his boot
into Ben’s ribs. Multiple times.

“
I earned the right! And now I live
with the burden.”

The General jammed his knee down onto Ben’s
throat, choking him. He then began to punch Ben in the head and
face repeatedly. “This is true strength. This is true power. And
you will never know it, you will never taste it.”

I wanted to run over and help, but Kim held me
back. It was probably for the best. I would not have stood a
chance.

The General towered over Ben and everyone else
in the room. His body was covered in sweat, his muscles were
straining.

He pointed to his soldiers. “Take him to the
labyrinth.”

Ben tried to stand. He was heavily concussed.
His face was bleeding, his right eye was swollen and closing over.
But he was still ready to fight.

The soldiers stepped forward. They each raised
their weapons.

Taser guns.

Ben was tasered at least six or seven
times.

He screamed in pain and his body tensed up and
convulsed as thousands of volts of electricity shot right through
him.

“
In the labyrinth,” General Spears
said. “You will suffer. There is not a thing on this earth that you
fear. But perhaps, down there, you will learn fear.”

And just like that Ben was gone. Tasered and
taken away.

I began to shake. Fear and adrenalin took a firm grip of my whole
body.