The Lost Journal Part 2 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (13 page)

And maybe
they could get Maria out of here.

"Wait, we
should try and contact them before they leave," I said. "Try the walkie-talkie."

Jack reached
for his pocket but there was no radio. "Crap. I left it in the security room."

"Wait here,"
I said as I ran for the security room.

If we could
contact one of those pilots, we could get Maria out of here. Maybe they would
even spare our lives.

Maybe.

But as I ran
back to the security room, I realized something was wrong. The noises, the
howling screams of the infected. They were getting louder. Closer.

Those noises
were coming from inside the building.

I stopped.
Confused.

What the
hell?

The screams continued
getting louder.

I could hear
their footsteps.

The infected
were in here. They were in the shopping complex with us.

I had
frozen.

Jack grabbed
me from behind. "Come on! We gotta go. They’re inside!"

I shook my
head. "What? How?"

"The train station
maybe," he answered. "I don’t know. Maybe they smashed in from somewhere."

The radio. We
could still get a message out.

I moved
inside the security room. Picked up the two walkie-talkies. Stuffed one in my
pocket and turned the other one on. But there was way too much static and
interference to broadcast. Probably from the building itself, I thought.

"I can’t get
a signal!"

"Forget it!"
Jack said. "We need to get out of here!"

"The pilots,
the choppers are close," I said "It’s too good a chance to pass up."

But I needed
to get a signal. I moved over to the window again and shot out the glass. The
glass shattered and fell away into the street below. I took a cautious step out
on to the ledge and tried the radio again.

"Mayday! Mayday! If anyone is out there, we are survivors of the Oz
Virus. We are not infected. Repeat, we are not infected. We are trapped in the
middle of Sydney. We have a survivor here who has shown immunity to the virus.
She may hold the key to a cure."

I could no longer see the choppers. But I could still hear them which
meant they had to be close.
Unfortunately, the screams
of the infected were getting louder.

"Kenji!" Jack shouted. "We have to go!"

He was right. The choppers were moving further away. And the infected
knew we were here. They were coming for us. They were getting closer.

"If anyone is listening, Please send help. Please."

Escape from Sydney Tower and the Tunnel
of Doom

We moved into the stairwell and headed for sub basement levels. Jack swore to
me there was an underground car park facility.

He was
right.

We found a
police car. It appeared to be some sort of highway patrol car. Luckily for us
it was unlocked. The doors were left wide open. And the keys were in the
ignition. If I had to guess, I’d say that whoever had been driving this police
car had left it here in a real hurry. No time to lock it up, no time to close
the doors, no time to take the keys.

It was a stroke
of luck. Fortune favors the bold, right?

I sure hope
so. We need fortune. We need luck.

I told Jack
to drive because he knew the streets.

"Maria you’re
in the back. Keep your head down."

She did not
argue.

We drove out
of the parking lot. We had to drive up three levels. Around in a circle. Up and
up. I got dizzy. Jack was driving fast. I felt like I was pressed against the
door, unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to do anything.

We finally
reached the exit. We smashed through a flimsy wooden boom gate and sped out
into the middle of the street. Jack executed a perfect hand brake turn and the
car slid sideways coming to a stop.

I was
breathing hard, holding on to the door and dashboard. "Maybe slow down?"

"Sorry, I’ve
always wanted to do that."

Maria was
looking out the rear windscreen. "Guys, we gotta go. They’re coming."

The infected
were about half a block away. Chasing hard.

Jack
released the handbrake and accelerated away. The cop car was fast. The engine
was most likely a V8. Extremely powerful. But we had only driven another two
blocks before Jack slowed. He was trying to figure out which way to go.

"Um, which
streets were blocked again?" he asked.

I was
looking left and right. I had no idea. The streets all looked the same to me.

"Ah guys,"
Maria said. "They’re still coming."

Jack picked
a direction. He turned the steering wheel hard to the left and floored it once
more.

Unfortunately
we were unable to full take advantage of the cop car’s V8 engine. The streets
were just too congested. A lot of the streets had been blocked off by the
military. These were cordoned off with concrete barricades and massive piles of
sandbags. The machine gun nests had been abandoned. Most probably they had been
overrun. The heavy machine guns, the 50 cals had been left behind. The military
had even left some of their tanks behind. These enormous machines only added to
the chaos and congestion of the streets.

There were
huge signs that gave directions for the evacuation routes and the quarantine
areas.

The streets
that hadn’t been blocked by the military were blocked by abandoned cars and
collapsed buildings. Other streets were completely destroyed by mortar rounds
and bombs and Surface to Air missiles. The destruction made our escape from the
inner city near impossible.

Eventually
we were funneled to the ‘Cross City Tunnel’.

It was an
oasis in a ruined city.

An express
lane out of that hell hole. Or so we thought.

I don’t know
why we thought it was a good idea. Maybe we were too exhausted and too scared
to think straight. I mean, at that point, after driving around for what felt
like a whole day, we were all convinced that there was no getting out of the
city. Not above ground. So when we found the cross city tunnel, it was like our
prayers had been answered or something. We were blinded to the possibility that
it might not be safe. Even when we voiced those fears out loud, we quickly
pushed them aside and silenced them.

Basically we
were stupid. And like I said, we should be dead.

"Cross City
Tunnel," Jack said, reading the street sign. "That’ll lead us out of the city,
to the other side."

"I don’t
know about this," Maria said. "Going underground? Is that really a good idea?"

"We don’t
have a choice," I said.

Jack pointed
to the entrance. There were a few abandoned cars that looked like they had been
pushed off to the side of the road. "Few cars here, but it shouldn’t be too
bad."

"How do you
even know that?" Maria asked. "We can’t see all the way inside. What if there
are more cars blocking our way further in? What if we can’t get passed? What if
we get trapped in there?"

"Well think
about it," Jack said. "If they were trying to evacuate people out of the city then
they most probably would’ve used this tunnel and…"

"Yeah, and?"
Maria asked. "What’s your point?"

"OK, I don’t
know."

"It’s all
right," I said. "We can afford to check it out. If the tunnel is blocked we can
come back and keep looking. But I think this is worth a shot. Jack, if what you
say about the tunnel is right, it’ll get us across the worst part of the city and
out on the other side."

We had to
take the tunnel, I thought to myself. Every other street we had turned down was
just flat out impassable. Unfortunately Maria’s fears about the tunnel being
blocked were realized. About half way in, there were two cars that looked like
they had crashed into each other head on. Jack slowed down and tried to drive
around the wreckage of the two cars but we couldn’t fit. We would need to get
out and move them to the side.

Jack put the
car in ‘park’.

"Come on," I
said. "We need to do this quickly."

I turned on
the torch attached to my rifle. The cars had definitely crashed head on. They
were practically twisted and tangled up together. We would need to try and separate
them from each other and then push them out of the way.

"Jack, can
you see if there’s a torch in the trunk or anything?"

Jack opened
the trunk of the cop car and found a shotgun, a bullet proof vest and a traffic
wand.

He turned it
on and then started waving it around like a light saber, making the sound
effects. "Kenji," he said in his deepest voice. "I am your father."

"Stop
messing around," Maria said.

"It’s cool.
I just…" he trailed off.

He held the
traffic wand up, moved it over to the side of the tunnel.

There were
piles of dead bodies on the side of the road. They were pushed up against the
walls of the tunnel. They had been shot in the head. Next to the bodies was a
large sign. We hadn’t seen it because it was dark. Jack held the traffic wand
up to read it.

The sign
read:

Evac Route.

"What?"
Maria asked. "What does it mean? Did they really evacuate people out of the
city through here?"

We looked up
ahead, into the dark.

Nothing.

A black
hole.

We strained
our ears. We couldn't hear anything except the wind blowing through the tunnel.

"Guys,"
Maria said. "Let’s turn back."

In the trunk
there was another traffic wand. I picked it up and walked forward.

Still
nothing.

The wind
died down to a whisper. It was then I could hear something that sounded like a
pitch fork scraping along the road. Metal on concrete. I looked at the others. It
could’ve been one of them making the noise.

But they
were both still. They were statues. They weren’t even breathing.

I continued
to listen.

Silence.

"What is it?"
Maria asked.

I ignored
her. Kept staring into the dark. Kept listening. This was bad.

"Kenji,
you're scaring us," she said.

"Are there
any flares in the trunk?" I asked Jack.

"Yeah, I
think so," he answered.

I moved over
to the trunk and picked up handful of flares. I lit one up. It sparked and ignited
and gave off a blindingly, bright red light. I threw it into the dark.

Nothing.

"We better
hurry," I said. "Jack, make sure that car is in neutral and the handbrake is
off. You should be able to push it out of the way. It’s only a small car. Maria
stay close to Jack."

"What are
you going to do?" she asked.

"Reconnaissance."

I lit
another flare, threw it ahead.

Nothing.
Nothing except that damn scraping noise.

Jack moved
over to the small hatchback and opened the driver side door. He released the
handbrake and started pushing.

I moved
deeper into the tunnel.

"Be
careful," Maria whispered.

I lit
another flare and threw it.

The scraping
noise was steady and rhythmic.

"All clear,"
Jack said. "Let’s go."

By this
stage all the other flares had died down. So I lit the last one and threw it
deeper into the tunnel. It landed at the foot of a soldier. His rifle was
gripped in his right hand. He was dragging the weapon along the road. He was
infected. His mouth was open. He was drooling blood.

I raised my
own rifle and shot him in the head. There was no time to think this through. It
was just a reflex. The noise of the gunshot echoed and bounced off the walls of
the tunnel.

This was
followed by silence. A second, maybe more.

The gunshot
was answered by the infected. Moaning and screaming in the distance. There were
more of them. Lots more.

"Get in the
car!" Jack shouted. "Let’s go!"

We jumped in
the car. I hadn’t even closed my door before Jack sped off.

The first
one we saw was standing off to the side of the road, facing the wall. We didn’t
see it. Not until we were so close we could’ve reached out and touched it. It turned
quickly, the headlights reflecting off its lifeless eyes. Turning them red,
like a demon. It lunged for the car, hitting the side of the hood. It bounced
off, smashing one of the headlights. The noise woke us up, scared the hell out
of us. We suddenly realized the tunnel wasn’t such a good idea.

"Should we
turn around?" Maria said.