The Sixth Level (27 page)

Daniel caught up with us as he was reloading.

I pushed Maria into his arms. "Take her!" I said. Actually, it was more like I ordered him.

Next to me was an old tractor tire. It was worn down so it had barely any tread left. I picked it up with ease, thankful for the increased strength the NBC suit provided. I swung the tire around with two hands, spinning in a circle and then released it, launching it at the infected woman wearing the blood soaked Burger King uniform.

It hit her in the side, right in her ribcage. I heard a sickening crack, as she fell to the ground. Jack continued to climb up and over the fence.

Once he was over and climbing back down the other side, I pointed out to the main road, back towards the golf course. "Meet us out there!"

He nodded his head and gave us the thumbs up. Surprisingly he seemed pretty calm and collected despite his near death experience. It made me wonder how many close calls they'd had while I was back in LA, in the luxury of the penthouse suite. How long did a person have to live in constant danger before they became used to it?

Daniel grabbed my shoulder and started pulling me towards the road. "Come on! We gotta go!"

"Wait! Where is Kenji?"

I was running backwards, trying to spot him, trying to see where he was. Did he get out in time? Where was he?

And then I saw him.

He had somehow scrambled and climbed up one of the stacks of flattened cars. He was at the very top. He looked down and saw the infected trying to climb up after him. Then he looked across and saw Jack climbing down the fence on the other side of the garage. Jack had stopped half way down and was yelling out to Kenji, waving him forward.

Kenji jumped across from the stack of cars on to the garage, landing with a loud clang on the metal roof. He began running to the other side, each footstep louder then the next with his big heavy army boots.

For a split second I thought he was going to make it easily. That he and Jack would climb down the fence together and meet us out on the road.

But then that giant spider thing crawled to the entrance of the garage. It started to come towards us. It climbed over the Humvee, its legs completely wrapping around the vehicle. It was weird, the spider thing appeared to be made of car parts and scrap metal. Sort of like the other sculptures.

But then it paused. It stopped, turned. Almost like it heard Kenji running across the roof. And then with deceptive speed and power it reached up with one of its legs and punched through the roof, knocking Kenji off his feet, missing him by the slimmest of margins.

The spider thing then punched another one of its legs through the roof and pulled itself upwards, climbing up to the ceiling of the garage.

Kenji tried to get to his feet but the whole structure began to sway. He stumbled to his knees but then fell over on to his side and began sliding down the roof. He fell off, landing on his back with a thud on the dirt ground.

The garage continued to sway. The spider was climbing around, upside down on the ceiling. But it was too heavy. The roof collapsed, the walls, everything. The whole garage came crashing down. Dust and dirt billowed up into the sky. The spider was buried, at least for the moment.

I ran back for Kenji. I didn't really think. I just acted. I jumped over the rubble and wreckage of the garage. I picked Kenji up, got him to his feet.

He was coughing, trying to catch his breath.

I put his arm around my neck and we ran back towards the road. But I looked up and froze.

A group of infected had survived the collapse of the garage, they were running after Daniel and Maria. Daniel was low on ammo, so they ran. They had to. Maria tried to come back for us, but Daniel grabbed her and pulled her along.

There was just too many infected running after them.

A split second later Daniel and Maria disappeared around the corner of the fuel station.

Kenji and I had to find another way back out to the road.

"Climb over!" Jack shouted from the other side of the fence.

He was crouched down next to a building on the other side, hiding next to a bunch of garbage cans.

I looked at Kenji. He was in bad shape. "Can you climb?"

He nodded. I think he knew he didn't have a choice.

We started climbing over the fence. And beneath the rubble of the garage, beneath the metal roof and walls we could hear that spider thing trying to get to its feet.

I got to the top and helped Kenji over. Once we were on the other side we sprinted back towards the road. Our plan was to get back to the safety of the golf course.

But as wan ran out on to the middle of the road we saw something that made us all stop dead in our tracks. To our left, about half a mile down the road, were thousands of infected. They were stumbling out from a hidden tunnel somewhere.

There’s no way we could run down there without being spotted. We turned to the right but again, about half a mile down the road, more and more infected were appearing out of a hidden tunnel. The whole thing reminded me of an ants nest. Angry, angry ants, pouring out from an underground nest to attack and defend their home.

"What the hell? Where are they coming from?" I asked in disbelief.

Kenji was hunched over trying to catch his breath. When he saw the infected, he straightened up, wincing as he did. He shouldered his rifle but even as he readied himself to fire he knew there was no point. We had nowhere near enough ammunition.

Running.

Hiding.

Again, these were our only options.

Jack swore and ran his hands through his hair. "Oh no. Oh crap. I can’t believe I forgot! I didn’t even think..."

"What? What is it?"

"There’s a tunnel, an underground road way. The Eastern Distributor. It leads all the way from the city. The road is directly below us. Whole stretches of it are underground. We gotta go!"

We ran across the road. In the middle of the road was a raised median strip, a divider that separated the north bound and south bound lanes of traffic. The divider also served as sort of a sunroof for the tunnel below. And as we ran past it, we could see through the metal slates of the sunroof. Each slate was a few feet apart. Underneath the road, inside the tunnel was a river of infected. They were all moving in one direction. They were all moving with one single purpose.

We kept going. Straight ahead, directly across the road from the fuel station was the IKEA store. It was part of a huge, long rectangular shaped building. According to the massive billboard next to the building it was a ‘home maker’ super center. Next to the IKEA was a bedding store. The sign for the bedding store read; ‘Heavenly Beds. Sleep like the dead'. That was unnerving to say the least. At the far end of the rectangular building was a hardware store. The whole building was like a customer friendly warehouse.

It was our only option. We couldn’t go left, we couldn’t go right. And we certainly couldn’t turn around.

We ran to the entrance of the IKEA but it was locked.

Kenji shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the lock. "Stand back," he said. "And cover your eyes."

"No, wait!

"What?"

"Save your bullets."

He lowered his gun.

I stepped forward and kicked out with my right foot and the entire door broke off its hinges.

We made our way into the labyrinth that was the IKEA store.

Behind us we could hear the screaming howl of thousands of infected. Angry and hungry and relentless.

Chapter 34

"Did anyone see where Maria went?" Jack asked between ragged breaths.

"She’s with Daniel," I answered.

"Where are they?"

"I don’t know."

"Did they get out?"

"I think so. But I didn't see which way they went."

"Oh great! They could be anywhere! They could be trapped!"

"They're probably on the golf course already," I said, trying to calm him down.

"But we don't know that. And we don’t even really know who this Daniel guy is!" Jack shouted. "He could've taken her anywhere. He could’ve put her in danger. What if he’s kidnapped her so he can escape by himself and collect a reward or whatever?"

"No, that’s stupid. He wouldn’t do that."

But even as I was saying it I remembered what he said about getting paid for this mission, how it was a huge amount that could set him up for life. But he wouldn't abandon us would he? Not after everything that's he's been through. "No way," I said. "He wouldn’t do that. He’s lost a lot on this mission. He lost his whole squad on this. And he's smart enough not to get trapped. They'll be safe," I said trying to convince myself as much as anyone. "And besides, apart from Kenji, Daniel's the best person, the most qualified to protect Maria."

We were running through the wide aisles of the IKEA, through all the home furniture displays. But we didn’t really know where we were running too. We had no idea where the exits were. The whole store was like a maze. Again, my chest tightened and a feeling of claustrophobia returned.

Kenji pointed to a side door. "Over there! That leads to the bedding store. Maybe we can find a way through it and sneak out the rear exit."

"Do you think they’ll be out there?" I asked fearfully.

"Not sure." Kenji replied.

"But these buildings back out on to the golf course," Jack added. "So if we can get out the rear exits we can make a run for it. We're better off in the open. There’s less chance of being ambushed or trapped."

Even though there was more chance of being spotted, I thought. But we had to pick our poison.

We made our way from the IKEA through an adjoining walkway into the bedding store. We could see the back exits. Unfortunately they had been barricaded shut with tables and bedding frames and mattresses. The same thing had been done to the front main entrance. The main entrance had a stack of bed mattresses and bed frames stacked up at least ten feet high.

Although there did appeared to be a gap down the side of the barricade. It was a neat gap, wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
I guess whoever had made the barricade, eventually gave up. Maybe they freaked out and decided to make a run for it.
Not that any of that mattered anymore, because through the gap we could see that the doors were wide open. And outside, the horde of infected were streaming past. They didn’t know we were in here yet but it wouldn’t be long.

At the far end of the bedding store we saw another side entrance that lead directly into the next store. The hardware store.

We paused momentarily, crouching down behind a massive king size bed.

"Do you think we can make it into the hardware store?" Jack asked between deep breaths.

"We have to try," Kenji answered. "It’ll take too long to move that barricade. We gotta try the hardware store."

I
f we couldn’t get out through the back of the hardware store, we’d have to go all the way back into the IKEA and try and find the rear exit or emergency exit. There would have to be one somewhere. But that store was so big and such a maze there was a real risk of getting lost or getting trapped.

And we could not afford to get trapped. Not with so many infected just outside. And that giant spider monster. Who even knew what that thing was capable of doing? I did not want to find out.

We stayed crouched behind the bed for what felt like a long time. Although in reality it was probably only thirty seconds. Eventually my heart rate began to slow. I was able to think a bit more clearly and process what had just happened.

"So what the hell was that thing spider thing?" I asked. "Have you guys seen anything like it?"

"No, nothing like it," Jack answered. "That was crazy."

I turned to Kenji. "Did you get briefed on any mechanical spider monsters before you came out here, Kenji? You’re not hiding anything else from us are you?"

"Ah, no," he said, slightly offended. "They never briefed us on anything like that. The virus, that's all they warned us about, that it changed people. And even then we didn't believe it. Not until we saw it with our own eyes at the immigration center. But that? That giant spider thing? You gotta be kidding me. No way. They never mentioned anything even remotely like that."

"Maybe it was just a robot or machine thing made by whoever made those other sculptures," Jack suggested sort of half sarcastically. "And maybe it just short circuited or something and it went haywire."

It sounded ridiculous but what was the alternative? A giant spider monster, made from spare car parts and scrap metal? None of it made sense. And that scared the hell out of me. Just knowing that there was something else out there, something else to fight and fear, to run and hide from.

"Come on," Kenji said. "Let's go, we can talk about it later. But right now we need to get the hell out of here."

We were about to make a move. But
Just then something crashed through the barricade of the main entrance.