Torn Apart (5 page)

“
Please don’t hurt us,” I blurted
out. “We’re looking for our friends.”

“
In the desert?” he
asked.

“
Yeah. We were following the tank
tracks,” Maria said.

“
Haven’t you heard? There is nothing
in the desert. Nothing but death and heat and pressure. Nothing is
out here. Not even the Fortress. Code Black. Lockdown.”

“
Do you know where it is?” I
asked.

“
Of course I do,” he said as he
spread his arms out wide. “It is all around us.”

“
What is in that ditch?” Maria
asked. “The severed hands. What happened?”

“
Never you mind little girl. Best
forget about the hands. They're watching. They are always
watching.”

What the hell was this guy talking about? Who
were watching? The hands were watching?

“
Did you do that?” I asked. “Did you
cut …” I trailed off. I couldn’t even ask the question.

“
No,” he answered. “Someone else did
that. Someone who knew. Someone without conscience. Someone who
either is prepared to do whatever it takes to survive, or enjoys
doing whatever it takes to survive.”

This guy wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.
And he looked sick. Not infected with the Oz virus, but just sick.
Malnourished. Sun burnt. Suffering from next level heat
stroke.

“
The General exiled me,” he said.
“He had his reasons. The desert. The heat. The pressure. Before it
kills you, it changes you. Hey blondie, give me a look at your
face.”

He grabbed Maria by the hair and studied her
face. He turned on a small computer screen attached to the inside
of his left wrist. It was similar to the control panel on the NBC
suit. But not as sleek. It looked like an earlier model or
something.

“
Yeah, this is you all right,” he
said as a smile crept across his dusty cracked lips. “Yeah boys.
Today is our lucky day. I thought she looked familiar. It’s her.
It’s Maria Marsh. Check your Intel report. It’s her,
man.”

I looked at Maria worriedly. Who the hell was
he talking to?

He showed us the small computer screen on his
wrist. “See?”

There was a picture on the computer monitor. It
was a picture of Maria. A school photo from last year. She had a
radiant smile. A bright blue ribbon in her hair.

“
This is our ticket out of here,” he
said to I’m not sure who. “Or at the very least back into the
Fortress. The General has gotta let us back in now,
right?”

“
What are you talking about?” I
asked. “What do you mean?”

“
I’m not supposed to tell anyone.
It’s highly classified intelligence, you know? It’s above Top
Secret. Maria Marsh. Female. Approximately sixteen years old.
Medium height. Blonde. Blue eyes. She is reportedly immune to the
Oz virus. I personally don’t believe it. But it doesn’t matter what
I believe.”

“
So the military is looking for
Maria?” I asked.

“
Of course. The whole world is
looking for Maria Marsh.”

“
Well, here I am,” Maria said. “You
found me. I’ll gladly help. I want to help.”

“
With your blood we can manufacture
and anti-virus,” he said. “Make a fortune. Just imagine it.
Any country or government that doesn't buy it off
us, we will release the virus in their population. I guarantee
they'll buy it after that. Just imagine it. What we could do. I
mean, just imagine the amount of money you could charge for this
vaccine. And they’ll pay. They’ll all pay.”

He then started singing an extremely disturbing
version of ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon.

“
How the hell have you survived for
this long?” the man asked after he had stopped singing. “And
what
are you wearing?”

“
This is an NBC suit,” Maria
answered. “It has saved my life more than once.”

“
Never seen anything like it.
Although it’s kind of like mine. Land Warrior system. Officially
the program was scrapped. Unofficially it was taken to the next
level. Cloud based technology. God like. Omnipresent. All knowing,
all seeing. How do you think the General sees all? The General, he
was in charge down here. I mean, he is in charge. Not was. He is in
charge. Yeah, that’s what I said. He is in charge down
here.”

The man looked around quickly, as though he was
about to be hit or punched. He even looked over his shoulder. He
was spooked.

“
From the moment of the outbreak,”
he continued. “The moment the virus spread its tentacles across the
country, he was in charge. He took charge. He never backed down. He
ordered the nuclear strike. Man, the stones on this guy. He is
brilliant. The conviction. The belief he has in himself. It is pure
genius. And now he is preparing for a long, drawn out war. A war
for survival. He will win. He will. You wanna know why?”

We didn’t get a chance to answer his question.
We didn’t get a chance to say anything. This guy was talking crazy.
He was rambling.

“
I’ll tell you why. It’s because he
is prepared. He is one hundred per cent prepared. He will do
anything and everything. He is not afraid. He has a mastery of fear
and a mastery of death. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Never.”

The soldier spoke fast. Too fast to keep up
with everything he was saying. Let alone understand everything he
was saying. It must be the heatstroke, I thought. Either that, or
he was on some serious drugs.

“
Some say he’s crazy. Some say he’s
acting on his own. I mean, sure, the military discharged him. Took
away their resources, cut us off. Cut Australia off. But everything
he has done. Everything. It has been for the greater good. He’s not
acting on his own. How can you say that when his actions are for
the survival of the human race? You can’t say it. And you shouldn’t
dare say it. Lest he hears you. And believe me, he hears
everything. He is watching. He’s always watching. Why do you think
I’m out here? He knew. I had a moment of weakness. I wasn’t
thinking straight. I questioned him. And he was listening. The one
time I slipped. The one time I spoke out of line. He was listening.
And watching. And this one time, he comes at me, stronger, louder.
More severe than usual. He banished me. Although I guess I should
consider myself lucky that he didn’t kill me, that he didn’t shoot
me, that he didn’t cut off my head, that he didn’t hang me up in
the mess hall for everyone to see, that he didn’t put my head on a
stick for everyone to see. So yeah, I guess I’m one of the lucky
ones. But I’ll make it up to him. You’ll see. I’ll make it up to
him. I’m strong. I’m loyal. I am a soldier. I served in the Middle
East. I never asked questions. Not even up in those Afghan
mountains. Not when the shit hit the fan. Not after the first
outbreak. Not when we lost control at Woomera. I have served until
the very end. And this is how they treat me?”

He began pacing back and forth in front of
us.

We were on our knees in the desert. Alone in
the desert. The tank tracks had disappeared. But they had led us to
a mad soldier. Someone who had been banished from his team. His
words, his movements were wild. His eyes were wild.

He was heavily armed. It looked like he was
prepared to last a few days on his own. Maybe a week.

“
Please don’t hurt us,” I said. “We
came here looking for help. We came here to find
someone.”

“
We all came here to find someone,”
he answered. “We are all looking for someone. Searching. And my
search is over. I have been rewarded. I found you. Maria Marsh. The
one. The only. You’re a goddess, you know that? You’re an angel.
The savior. I’m certain some of the guys fell in love with you the
moment they saw your photo. How could they not? You represented
everything that is good with the world, everything that is worth
fighting for. You represented hope and innocence to these men.
These men who are not innocent and never will be. You were
something worth saving because you could save us. Do you see? That
is why you’re an angel. That is why you’re a goddess. And now the
General will have to let me back in. Now that I have
you.”

“
How?” I asked. “How do we get in?
Where is this place?”

“
It is far. It is big,” he said as
he looked up to the desert sky again. “We need to contact him. Get
his attention. He is always watching. He sees all. But first, we
need to hide you. We need you out of harm’s way. It is too
dangerous out here.”

He bent down and picked up a chain that was
hidden in the dust. The chain was attached to a trapdoor. There was
a keypad on the door. He punched in a code and opened it up. A
ladder led straight down into darkness.

We must’ve come across another outpost, I
thought. Or a bunker or something. Maybe this is where he was
getting his supplies from. Food and water and ammo. There must be
hundreds of these bunkers hidden all over the desert.

“
Where are you taking her?” I
asked.

He ignored me and retrieved a black hood and
two plastic zip ties from one of his pockets on his vest. He tied
my hands together and then tied Maria’s hands together in front of
her body and slipped the black hood over her head.

“
Go,” he said to Maria. “Start
climbing. You stop, I shoot. And then you’ll get to the bottom real
fast. You catch my meaning?”

Shoot? He was just talking about how she was a
goddess? “You won’t shoot her,” I said, trying to call his bluff.
“You need her. We all need her.”

“
Doc never said nothing about
getting her alive. But I don’t feel like carrying you all the way
back. We got a long way to go. Especially now the trains are
out.”

“
I can’t see!” Maria said. “How do
you expect me to climb?”

“
You don’t need to see where you’re
going. Just hold on real tight. You just need to climb straight
down. It’s a piece of cake. Now, if you fall, you will fall to your
death. It is a long way straight down. A long way. So you better
hold on tight. When you reach the bottom. You wait. You stay quiet.
Like a good girl. The door is locked. Can’t open it from the
inside. You should be safe. But you stay quiet just to be sure. You
never know what is lurking in those tunnels.”

He helped Maria onto the ladder. She began
climbing.

“
Maria, be strong.” I
said.

“
It’s going to be OK,” she
answered.

She was trying to be strong. She was trying to
be brave. But I could see her knees and hands shaking. I could hear
her voice tremble.

She began the climb. A few seconds later, the
mad soldier slammed the trap door shut. He looked at me with his
wild eyes. And I knew he was going to kill me.

The mad soldier stared at me for a few seconds. His eyes were
glazed over.

“
When nuclear weapons were first
invented,” he said, “They tested the effects of them on humans.
They would chain up prisoners and criminals and test subjects. They
would put them at various distances from ground zero. The people
closest to the blast would be incinerated and vaporized
immediately. Further out, they would be burnt to a crisp. And even
further out than that, they would still be burnt, but they would
survive. At least they would survive for a few days. Over the
course of a few days, or a week, they would slowly die from their
burns or from radiation poisoning. Some would take longer. Some
lived long enough to develop cancer. What is worse? I don’t
know.”

“
Please,” I begged. “I can
help.”

I said I could help even though I wasn’t
entirely sure that I could.

He had Maria. She was all he needed.

“
But all of that,” he continued,
ignoring my plea. “All of that pales in comparison to what is going
on down here. Down here, in this place, in this desert, it is hell.
And General Spears is the devil. Don’t get me wrong, he is a
brilliant man. A genius, really. But don’t you dare cross him. You
don’t do it. It is better his way.”

He looked up to the sky. “Now, where is that
goddamn drone? I know he’s watching.”

He spun around, looking, searching and
shielding his eyes from the sunlight. “Where are you!? I found her.
I have the goddess. I have Maria Marsh. You have to let me
in!”

There was something I didn’t see before. A
short distance away from the trap door was a whole bunch of severed
hands, arranged in a message.

The message said:

Let me in…

Big letters. Big enough to be seen from the
sky.

He was now arranging more hands. Another
message.

It took him about ten minutes to get the
severed hands in the right position.

I have Maria Marsh…

“
Please,” I said again. “Maria wants
to help. Believe me. She does. But she will be more likely to
cooperate if I’m there with her. She won’t fight you. She won’t
struggle if I’m there.”

The mad soldier looked up to the sun. Stared at
the sun. After a few minutes he lowered his gaze. And when he
looked at me his eyes were unfocused and bloodshot. His pupils were
pinpoints.