Torn Apart (29 page)

How she avoided all those floating bodies, I’ll never
know. She must’ve dived for the bottom of the harbor, picked out
clear spot, swum up to the surface. I was still in denial. Maybe I
had already convinced myself she was dead.

More infected piled out from the casino. Some of them
were on fire. Some of them were missing limbs. Regardless of their
injuries and disfigurements, they were all running faster than
humanly possible.

Maria saw them and started backing away. A split
second later she started running. Luckily she ran in my
direction.

I took aim at the infected. I unloaded the rest of
the magazine. Full automatic.

I reloaded. Kept firing.

Maria looked up and saw me. She ran over.

She made it over to me in world record time.

She doubled over, breathing hard. “Kenij! I can’t… I
can’t believe it.”

“
It’s OK. Just breathe.”

“
Where did you guys go? What
happened?”

“
They got out,” I answered. “I had
to stay behind. I had to cover their escape.”

“
What? What happened back in the
casino?”

I fired off a few more rounds, making sure they were
head shots, making sure they counted.

“
We had to leave you,” I
said.

And as I said it, Maria looked like someone had
sucker punched her. “What?” she repeated.

“
I’m sorry,” I said. “We had to
leave. I made the call.”

Her face went pale. Her knees were starting to
buckle. It was then I remembered she was probably still very weak
from being bitten.

“
Where is Jack?” she
asked.

“
Look, we have to hide. I’ll explain
everything but right now we need to get out of the open. We’re not
safe here.”

She shook her head. “No. Where is Jack!?” she asked
again, ignoring everything that was happening around us.

“
He’s safe. They’re all safe. We
gotta go.”

I scanned our immediate area. We did not have
long.

Maria’s knees continued to buckle. It was taking her
considerable effort to stand. I went to put my arm around her, to
support her but she pushed me away.

“
Please, just tell me! Where is
Jack?”

She began to collapse. I caught her and picked her
up.

“
I’ll explain everything,” I
whispered. “But we need to get out of here. It’s not
safe.”

We made our way back to the boat I had been hiding
in. I laid Maria on the floor. She kept asking for Jack.

And I kept telling myself I did the right thing.

Calm on the outside. Freaking out on the inside.

The boat we were hiding in was a harbor cruise boat. It had
multiple levels and lots of windows. If the military were still
looking for Maria it would not take them long to find us. Although
at that moment it appeared that the men in black, the Special
Forces soldiers had left the area. And for some reason the number
of infected had thinned quite a bit. I looked around the boat. The
floor we were on had a bar. I found some bottled water and forced
Maria to drink it.

She grabbed the bottle and downed it in one go. And
then she threw it all back up.

“
Slow down,” I said as I gave her
another bottle. “Small sips.”

She reluctantly took my advice.

“
Where are the others?” she asked
between deep breaths. “Where is Jack?”

I lowered my head. This would be hard for her. But
there was no point in sugar coating it. No point in lying. “We
made, well, I made the decision to leave you back at the casino,” I
said. “I figured the soldiers wanted you. And only you. I figured
they knew you were resistant to the virus. I don’t know how they
knew but they knew. It was obvious that you were their target. They
wanted you alive. The rest of us were expendable. If we stayed, if
we tried to fight those soldiers, we would’ve been killed. Even if
we surrendered peacefully they still would’ve executed us.”

She continued to drink the water, taking small sips.
Her eyes flicking back and forth as she thought about the
implications of what I was saying, replaying the events in her
mind’s eye.

“
We fled the casino,” I continued.
“We made it to one of the boats in the harbor. The problem with our
escape plan was that we were completely surrounded by those
soldiers. They were enforcing the containment protocol. They wanted
us dead. I put Rebecca and Kim and Jack on the boat. I provided
cover fire for them as they made their escape out of the harbor. If
I hadn’t done that, we would’ve been blown apart. We wouldn’t have
gotten two feet without being torn to shreds. I mean, we were
completely surrounded; they were above us on the bridge. They
would’ve killed us.”

“
Did they make it?” Maria asked,
worry all over her face.

I nodded. “I think so. They made it out of Darling
Harbor.”

“
You think so? But you can’t be
sure?”

I lowered my head.

“
Did they make it!?”

“
I…I can’t be sure.”

Maria started crying. Her jaw was clenched. She was
trying to keep it together. She looked out the windows of our
cruise boat. She looked out towards the main harbor.

“
I had no choice,” I said, defending
myself.

She didn’t answer me. She started shivering. She was
going into shock. “Where will they go? What will they do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Hopefully they can
get away from the city. Find a quiet beach somewhere up the coast
and come to shore.”

“
We need to find them.”

“
No. We can’t. We need to keep you
safe. We need to hide.”

Pass the ammunition

Maria was sitting down against the wall, knees to her chest, head
tucked into her arms. The whole harbor seemed to be deserted
now.

The casino building was leaning at an angle. It
looked like it was about to fall over. The wreckage of the tank was
still smoldering. Bodies were everywhere.

Infected.

Soldiers.

Innocent people.

I wondered how long it would take for more infected
to make their way through here. I wondered if the soldiers would be
back to clean up this mess.

One thing was obvious, I needed more ammo. Maybe a
spare rifle for Maria. She probably didn’t know how to fire a gun
but she would have to learn. Necessity was a great teacher.

I walked over to Maria and knelt down beside her.
“Maria,” I whispered.

No response.

“
Maria. I need to leave you for a
few minutes. I need to go down there and look for some ammunition.
I’ve only got half a mag left. It’s not enough if any more infected
come through here. It’s not enough to defend ourselves. I’ll only
be gone a few minutes.”

She raised her head slowly. “Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t leave me.”

“
I need to do this. We need the
ammo. If more infected come through here we’ll need to defend
ourselves. We need to be prepared.”

The infected would indeed come through here, I
thought. They would probably make their way into the city from the
western suburbs.

She tucked her head back into her arms and kept
saying, “Don’t leave me.”

But I had to. She knew it. I knew it. I patted her on
the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

Exposed

I made a quick pass of the surrounding area and made my way back up
to the footbridge. I managed to scavenge five more magazines of
ammunition.

From the vantage point of the footbridge I could see
back out to the main harbor. I could see the smoke rising from the
ruins of north Sydney and the main bridge. There was more smoke
from other areas of the inner city as well. The smoke billowed up
into the blue summer sky, giving the whole city a weird hazy orange
look. It was then I realized I could hear more gunfire coming from
the city.

The military were in the process of falling back. And
if my experience in Woomera was anything to go by, they would be
leaving those last soldiers behind. Leaving them as a distraction,
a diversion so the rest of the forces could get away unscathed.

Poor bastards.

The gunfire continued to intensify as I made my way
back to our boat.

Heavy machine guns.

Chain guns.

Mortar rounds.

Rockets.

Hellfire missiles.

It sounded like a pretty big force. This could only
mean they were being pursued by a very large number of
infected.

I knelt down on the footbridge and listened to the
noises. I tried to zero in on the location of the fire fight. It
was difficult. The gun shots were echoing off the city buildings.
The only thing I could tell is that they were close. Maybe a few
blocks away. Maybe less.

As I listened to the sounds of a new kind of war I
wondered about what to do with Maria. I needed to get her to the
military, I thought. I don’t care if they execute me. Maria needed
to get out of this city and the military were the only ones capable
of doing that. It was the right thing to do, the only logical thing
to do.

There had to be a radio around here somewhere. I
could get the radio. Call for help. Simple.

Right on cue, there was a blast of static from the
radio of a fallen soldier.

The noise was coming from behind me. I turned around.
Lying underneath a huge slab of concrete was a body of one of the
men in black. The body was partially crushed by the slab.

His legs were too far away from his upper body.

Somehow his radio was still working. I could hear
static. Every now and then I could make out voices on the other
end.

Scared voices.

Terrified and panicked voices.

“
There’s too many!”

“
Fall back! Fall back!”

“
Get to the extraction point.
NOW!”

“
They’re coming!”

In between the shouting I could hear gunshots and
explosions. The screams of dying men. The howling moans of
infected.

We weren’t safe here, I thought.

I could hear static from another radio. There must’ve
been another fallen soldier close by, but I couldn’t see him. I
moved a plank of wood that used to be part of the footbridge. I
expected the body to be underneath.

Nothing.

He had to be close.

I lifted another piece of rubble. And then I finally
found him.

And then it was clear to me.

The reason I was having a hard time finding the
body.

It was slowly crawling away.

But when I’d moved the piece of wood it saw me or
heard me or whatever.

It knew I was there.

The body. The infected.

Moments ago this thing was a soldier. A Special
Forces soldier. He was smart and skilled. Highly trained. His
mission was to rescue Maria. Kill the rest of us. But a human being
none the less. His legs were bent at sickening angles. His
intestines had been dragged behind him.

His weapon, an M4 carbine with an infra red scope and
a 40mm grenade launcher was still gripped in his hand. The hand was
still attached to most of his arm. It was several feet away on the
other side of the footbridge.

Now the thing was slowly turning back towards me. It
was crawling. But then it got back up.

I took a step back. My heart stopped.

When they get back up. A human. A person that in all
probability should be dead. Someone that has been blown apart,
their legs shattered and their guts and major organs hanging out in
the world. When they get back up…

It shook me to my core.

If I wasn’t a trained soldier, if it wasn’t just a
reflex, I probably would’ve frozen up completely. I probably
would’ve died.

The infected soldier took a few stumbling steps
towards me.

I heard a loud crack as one of its leg bones, its
tibia maybe, snapped clean in half. A sliver of extremely sharp
bone stuck right out through the skin, right through his pants.

The thing stumbled to its knees. But he kept
shuffling forward, arms outstretched. Mouth wide, wide open.

My training kicked in.

I raised the rifle. Fired two shots into its chest
and one into its head.

I destroyed the radio in the process but at that
point I didn’t really care about the radio. Would the military even
come back if I called them? I doubt it.

They were in the process of retreating. They had
their hands full.

I grabbed the fallen soldier’s hand, pried his cold
fingers apart and relieved him of his rifle and spare ammo.

“
Look at us,” the dead soldier said.
“Two of a kind. Two peas in a pod.”

I dropped the arm. Took a big step back.

“
Yes,” the dead soldier
said.

I shook my head. Took another step back. “What?”

“
Yes, to whatever. Yes, you did the
right thing. Yes, you screwed up. Yes, you had no choice. Yes, we
were a Special Forces team. Yes, we are two peas in a
pod.”

“
I’m not a Special Forces soldier,”
I said to the corpse.

“
Sure ya not. And I’m a goddamn
china man.”

“
I’m Japanese.”

“
Whatever. Turn away.”

“
What? Why?”

“
Turn away and describe what I’m
wearing, describe me, my facial features.”

“
I’m not turning away.”

“
Of course not. That would be
dangerous. I could hit you. I could attack you. Hell, I could even
bite you. But that wasn’t the point of my little exercise. The
point was; if you were to turn away or close your eyes, you could
still remember everything I was wearing. You would know my eye
color. Hair color. Skin tone. I bet if someone asked you to
describe this harbor you could do it with autistic savant like
detail. You know the exits. You know the points of cover. You know
everything.”