Torn Apart (4 page)

“
See what?” Maria said.

I moved towards him again and pulled his shirt
collar down so I could see his shoulder and his chest. His skin was
kind of gray. I could see his ribs. And his collarbone was sticking
out, like he was malnourished or anorexic or something.

No black mark though.

“
Should you be so close to him?”
Maria asked. “I don’t think that’s safe. That’s exactly how I was
bitten, remember?”

“
Good point.”

I made sure my rifle was loaded and took a step
back. I pointed the barrel directly at his head. “Do you want to
say a few words?”

“
Don’t know,” Maria answered. “It’s
hard to say something when you don’t know them. We only spoke a few
words. He seemed like a good man. Someone who would give his life
for another. I don’t know how or why he is dead when we are not. I
just don’t know.” After a while she said, “May God, or someone,
have mercy on his soul. Have a good journey.”

“
Have a good journey?”

“
Yeah. You know, to the other side
or wherever.”

We didn't know if he was infected but it was
better to be safe than sorry. We were going to make sure that he
didn’t turn, that he didn’t come back. So I put a bullet in his
brain.

We were about to climb down from the attic of
the barn, when I noticed the harpoon launcher that they had used
when they were under attack from the nano-swarms.

It was next to the window.

I moved over to it and picked it up. I saw the
name of the manufacturer on the barrel.

YoshidaCorp.

I traced the name with my finger.

“
What is it?” Maria
asked.

I showed her the weapon. Showed her the
name.

Yoshida is Kenji’s surname. YoshidaCorp is his
father’s company.

“
What do you think it means?” she
asked. “What do you think happened to Kenji?”

“
I don't know. Don’t want to think
about it.”

Again, I must’ve drifted off into my own little
world because the next thing I know, Maria had taken the prototype
weapon off me. She placed it on the ground and led me out of the
barn.

“
We need to stay positive,” she
said. “We need to stay strong.”

I nodded my head. She was right. We still had a
job to do. We had a mission. I needed to be strong for
Maria.

Time to get back to business.

“
Come on,” Maria said. “It’s getting
dark. We need to make it back to the tracks before
dark.”

We began walking. Maria was deep in thought.
Her forehead, her entire brow was all scrunched up.

“
What is it?” I asked.

“
It’s nothing. Actually, I’m not
sure. It’s just that, the way that guy was throwing up black vomit.
It reminded me of Daniel. He was so sick. It was scary,” she said,
taking a deep breath. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

“
To be honest, I don’t know. But I
do know that he is one tough dude. And plus, he was at his camp.
His base. That means if his people are looking for him, that’s the
first place they’ll look. That’s the first thing they teach in
survival school, isn’t it?”

“
What is?”

“
Stay with the camp. Stay with the
car or boat or plane or whatever. You’ve got a better chance of
being found. If you go walking off, you’re screwed.”

Maria nodded. Thinking it over. “But that’s
exactly what we did. We walked off. We walked off into the
Australian outback.”

“
We had no choice. We have to find
our friends. We have to get you to the safety of the
Fortress.”

“
But I'm worried,” Maria continued.
“You heard what that guy said. Code Black. Lockdown. The entire
residential area and the research lab. What if this place is
overrun?”

“
We heard those voices, right? So we
know there are survivors. And we saw the surveillance drone.
Someone is remote piloting that thing. Trust me; this is where we
will find Jack. And Kim. It has to be. We have to keep
going.”

The sun continued to set. The sky was still
overcast.

As we walked back to the tank tracks, I looked
back at the barn. I don’t know why I looked back. I just did. It
was like a reflex, like I could sense something or someone. And as
I looked back I could’ve sworn someone was standing in the window
of the barn. Looking at us. I was so shocked, I lost my footing. I
stumbled and tripped over a rock. When I got to my feet and looked
back, the figure was gone.

“
Are you all right?” Maria asked as
she helped me to my feet.

“
Yeah. I just thought… I thought I
saw someone.”

“
What?”

“
Someone in the window. The man,” I
said. I could barely form whole sentences. “There was a shadow, a
figure, a silhouette. He was standing in the window. Looking at us.
Watching us.”

Maria looked back at the barn, squinting her
eyes. “There’s nothing there.”

I rubbed my head. It still throbbed and ached.
Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. The desert playing
tricks on me. I hoped so.

“
Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Let’s go.”

The cloud cover remained, so when night time arrived we could not
see a damn thing. It was too dark. No moonlight. No starlight. We
dug a foxhole and slept during the night, taking turns at keeping
watch. I don’t think either of us got much sleep. The next day, the
cloud cover had dissipated. But it was early in the morning and we
figured we should get a move on. It would be best if we got back to
the tank tracks. Just in case.

As we walked, Maria kept asking me and
interrogating me about Ben. The things he had done. She was worried
about me. After I lost my cool yesterday, she thought I was
becoming violent. Maybe she was right.

“
Tell me,” she said.

“
No.”

“
Just tell me.”

“
Why?”

“
You never told me. That's
why.”

Maria was pestering me about the scene in the
church in the town of Hope.

The murder scene.

The scene of torture.

Justice, according to Ben.

“
Why do you want to know?” I
asked.

“
Because it's important,” she
answered.

“
No, it's not.”

“
It is. It's important because it
symbolizes where we're at. The reality.”

The scene flashes in my mind every now and
then. Like lightning. Maybe it would be better to talk about it.
Talk about Ben. Big Ben. He was part maniac, part hero. He had
saved Maria and me from a certain death. And then he had killed the
priest, Father Damon. And his men. He had killed them with his bare
hands.

He had tortured four men. Four that I’m sure
of. He might’ve tortured more.

Maria wants to know the specifics.

The gory details.

I don’t know why.

“
Just tell me,” she said
again.

The truth is, big Ben may have been
crazy.

The truth is, we owe him our lives.

The truth is, he crucified the priest. Strung
him up above the altar in the church.

If I had to guess, I'd say he probably enjoyed
it.

“
You don't want to know,” I
said.

“
Yes I do.”

I took a deep breath. “Fine. I'll tell
you.”

I was about to tell her all the gory details.
The part how the priest’s arms were stretched out, his shoulders
dislocated. How his neck was at this impossible and awkward angle.
How his skin from his back was flayed and spread out like angel
wings.

I was about to tell Maria all of this. But I
didn’t.

I stopped walking.

The tank tracks had disappeared.

We both stopped immediately. The tank tracks had disappeared. We
were officially screwed. We were in the middle of the desert.
Barely any food. Barely any water.

We both looked around frantically. Fear took a
firm grip in my chest.

The dusty dirt red ground was barren. It
offered no answers.

The only thing in the immediate area was a
waist high, black metallic pole that stuck up out of the
desert.

I walked up to it. “What is this?” I asked with
fear and anger in my voice. “What the hell is this?”

Maria just shook her head. “I don’t
know.”

I kicked the pole out of frustration. It was
secured firmly in the ground. “We are screwed.”

“
Don’t say that.”

“
We don’t have enough water to make
it back. How much do you have?” I asked Maria as I wriggled out of
my own backpack and checked my water supply. I had one bottle and
one canteen left.

“
Maria? How much water do you have
left?”

Maria didn’t answer. “Hey, what’s that?” she
asked.

“
What’s what?”

She pointed. “Behind the pole.”

I looked. There was what appeared to be a
square patch of carpet. Covered in dust and dirt. The piece of
carpet was covering a small ditch, like someone had hastily dug a
hole to bury something, and then had tried to hide it.

I leant over and picked up the dirty piece of
carpet. What I saw was enough to make me feel sick. And I should
have taken it as a warning sign from a higher power to get the hell
out of there.

Turn back.

Run.

It was a ditch of severed hands.

All the fingers were clawed in rigor mortis.
The hands had been severed just above the wrist, about half way up
the forearm. The hands were all dusty. They were covered in blood
that was dried and cracked and brown.

On the inside of each wrist was a
barcode.

Maria took a step back. “What the hell? What is
this? What’s going on?”

She put her hand up to her mouth. She looked
like she was going to be sick.

“
I don't know,” I
whispered.

It was all I could say.

I put the piece of carpet back, covering the
ditch of hands. This was a bad sign. The fear that had taken hold
in my chest was spreading to the rest of my body.

The tracks we had been following were gone. We
had hoped they would lead us to the Fortress. Or to another
outpost, or to a town, or something.

But they hadn’t.

They had led us out into the middle of nowhere,
to a metal pole and a ditch of severed hands.

We had taken a gamble. A huge risk. We had
risked our lives. And we had lost.

“
Where did the tracks go?” Maria
asked. “Where did the tanks go?”

“
I don't know,” I
repeated.

“
They didn’t just
disappear!”

But they did.

“
Where did they go?” she asked. “Why
is there a ditch of severed hands!?”

Maria shouted the questions at me and at the
desert. She was scared and freaking out and so was I. We had walked
off into the desert with no real plan other than to follow these
goddamn tank tracks.

And now they had disappeared.

I was about to tell her to calm down, that we
needed to think rationally and figure this shit out and plan our
next move. But I never got the chance. Suddenly we heard a weird
noise.

A ‘pop hiss’.

Something small, like a can of soda, came
flying and smoking towards us. And then another.

We immediately began choking.

Tears filled my eyes.

I dropped to my knees, trying to cover my
face.

My throat and my eyes and my nose were on
fire.

I couldn’t see properly, but someone or
something emerged from the dusty desert ground.

Emerged.

I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s like
they were hiding in the dirt. Under the ground.

Waiting.

Waiting for what?

For us?

“
Get down!” a voice growled. “Drop
the rifle! Do not run. Do not move. You move, you die.”

Maria and I had both fallen to our knees. Our faces were covered in
tears and snot.

A man was standing over us. He had a shotgun
pointed directly at our heads. He appeared to be a soldier. He was
wearing desert camouflage fatigues. He had a huge, overgrown beard.
It was big and wild and unkempt. It was knotted and full of dust
and twigs from the desert brush. The exposed sections of his skin
were red. His eyes were bloodshot.

He kicked away my rifle and then he began
talking to himself and rambling.

“
They killed everyone else,” he
said. “The General cleansed the Fortress. Cured the ranks of
weakness. He is a great man.”