Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 (12 page)

John orders Helen and Nathan into the basement. He tells them not to let anyone
in other than himself.

“Can you use that thing?” he says, asking
about my rifle.

“I’m OK. Better than some.”

“All right then, let’s go up to the second
floor. You might be able to take them out. You’ll have a pretty good vantage
point.”

I nod my head, thinking to myself. “I’m not
sure I have enough bullets to take them all out.”

“How many do you have?”

“I’ve got one spare magazine for the rifle.
One spare magazine for the handgun. So basically, I mean, even if every shot I
take is a head shot, and there’s no way I’d be able to do that, it won’t be
enough. There’s got to be over a hundred infected people outside.”

“So what the hell do you suggest?” he asks.
“If you run out there right now, you’re dead. You won’t make it two steps out
the door before they jump all over you.”

He’s right.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say. “I need to see
the layout of this place.”

“Follow me.”

We climb the stairs. When we arrive on the
second floor we walk past room after room on our way to the front of the house.
Marko was right, Helen was right, this place really was more like a hotel.

Wait. Does this mean Marko and Billy have
been inside here before?

“Has anyone else ever been inside here?” I
ask John.

John thinks it over. “It’s possible. I
mean, we hear a lot of crazy shit going on when we’re hiding down in that
basement. We just assumed it was the sick people, the infected, trying to get
in. But we hide down in the basement most of the time. Like I said, we only
ever come up here on rare occasions. The only reason we came up today was
because we heard the gunshots.”

“So if someone snuck in here quietly, you
would never know?”

Again, he thinks it over. “I guess it’s
possible. But they would need to break in here through the barricades, through
the boards. They would need tools to do that.

“Tools? Like, a hammer?”

“Yeah. A hammer would do the trick. But
then they would need to replace the boards when they leave. I can’t imagine
anyone doing that. I don’t see how that’s even possible.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.

“Why do you ask?”

“Two of the guys I’m travelling with, they
described this place, this house, like they had been inside it before. They
seemed to know a lot about it. Like the fact that it’s more of a hotel than a
house. How many bedrooms does this place have?”

“There’s about ten guest rooms in total. I
think. Most of them are up here.”

We make our way to one of the bigger rooms
at the front of the house. From here, on the second floor, we can see the
entire village. It looks like a hastily constructed suburb. Like if someone had
built an entire suburb in one day. I peer out through a gap in the boards that
have been used to barricade the windows. The infected are below us. There is an
entire horde of them. Too many to count.

And I couldn’t possibly shoot them all.

I scan the village for any sign of the
others.

“I don’t like your chances here,” John
says.

“Me neither.”

“You can stay here,” he offers. “You’re
more than welcome. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Plus you
seem to know more about what’s going on than we could ever hope to know.”

He’s right. I know more than I could ever
want
to know. Because I know it’s over.
I know it’s hopeless. I wonder what would happen if I told him everything I
knew.

How would he react?

What would happen if I told him that the
virus has spread right around the world?

What would happen if I told him that all
over the world, people are dying?

That all over, people are turning into
monsters.

That there’s no stopping it.

There’s no cure.

And when this is all over, billions will be
dead.

Billions
.

How would he react?

What would he do?

Would he go back down into the basement?
Would he continue to hide and wait?

Wait for what?

“I appreciate the offer,” I say. “I really
do. But I can’t stay. I have to keep going. I need to keep moving.”

“What if your friends out there are dead? I
know you don’t want to think about it. But… what if?”

He’s right. I don’t want to think about it.

But if they are dead, then I’ll need to go
back for the others. Maria, Jack, Kim. I’ll drive. Or walk.

Run.

Crawl.

But I won’t stop.

I can’t stop.

Not until I’m dead.

Not until I have breathed my last breath.

“You sure are one stubborn little girl,”
John says. “I admire that.”

I reach through a gap in the boards and tap
on the glass of the window. “Are all the windows up here intact?”

“Yeah. All of them are, actually. Why?”

“Well, there’s no way I can shoot all of
those infected people. But maybe I can outrun them. Outsmart them.”

“Outrun them? Are you sure about that? They
can move pretty fast when they get going.”

“That’s why I’ll need a head start.”

“OK, so let’s say you get a good head
start. And then you’re off and running. Where the hell are you going to go?
What’s your plan? You can’t just run away, they’ll eventually chase you down.
And even in the remote chance that you get away from this mine site unscathed,
and with all your limbs intact, you can’t just run off into the desert. You
don’t have any water. You won’t last more than a couple of days.”

“I’m going to head for the car. The
Landcruiser. It’s just sitting there. Ready to go. And besides, that’s where
I’m supposed to meet up with them.”

John shakes his head as he looks out over
the horde of infected. “You’re mad. And what you’re saying is madness. You’ll
never make it.”

He’s wrong. I can make it. I have to make
it. Failure is not an option. The only problem will be… the car. Did Marko
leave the keys with the car? Did he leave them in the ignition? Or did he take
them with him?

Did he manage to fix the engine properly
before we were attacked?

And what if some of the infected are still
there? What if they’re smashing the car up, smashing the windows, tearing the
doors off? What if they’ve turned the whole thing over in an attempt to get to
the Evo Agent tied up in the back?

I don’t tell John these concerns. I’m
starting to get the feeling that maybe he’s going to do something stupid and
desperate, something like tackling me to the ground, or knocking me unconscious
and dragging me down into the basement.

He will do this with the best intentions.

He will do this because he thinks he will
be saving my life.

Playing it safe. Hiding. Waiting. Waiting
in the dark for something, the military, the government, a rescue, waiting for
something that is never going to happen.

We need to take charge of our own lives,
our own future.

Doesn’t he see that?

I tell myself that he has been locked up in
the dark for months now. He doesn’t know what I know.

I look out over the village one more time,
searching for my friends. I still can’t see them.

There is no signs of life. Only death.

To make matters worse, I can’t quite see
the Landcruiser from here.

“So, what’s your plan?” John asks.

“I’m going to create a distraction,” I
answer.

Kenji keeps telling me that all warfare is
deception.

Well, it’s time to put that theory into
practice.

We make our way to one of the guest rooms at the rear of the homestead. This
room is even bigger than the room we just came from. Again, all the windows
have been boarded up, but through the gaps we can see an absolutely amazing
view of the vast, empty desert. The view is hypnotic. And for a second, I
forget that there is a horde of undead monsters banging on the front door.

“What now?” John asks.

I waste no time. I slip the butt of my
rifle through a gap in the boards.

John holds his hands out. “Wait! What are
you doing?”

“Trust me, you won’t miss this.”

I smash the window with the butt of my
rifle and the glass shatters and falls to the ground. I move to the next window
and repeat, shattering and smashing glass.

I smash another window. And another.

“Can you check to see if they’re coming?” I
ask.

John makes his way to the front of the
house.

“Don’t let them see you,” I call out to
him. “Or hear you.”

I smash another window.

John comes running back. “They’re all gone!”

“No,” I say, pointing to the ground below.
“They’re not gone. They’re right here.”

I slide the barrel of my rifle through a
gap in the boards. I aim at the horde of infected people. Dead center. I open
fire.

Two infected people drop. And then a third
one. But this makes no great difference to their numbers.

The noise of the gunshot seems to make them
angrier. It seems to give them more energy.

I take out my handgun and give it to John.
“I need you to keep them occupied for me.”

“Occupied?”

“Just keep shooting. Shoot slowly. One at a
time. Aim for the head.”

“Aim for the head?”

“The only way to put them down, the only
way to kill them is to destroy their brain. Shoot them in the head.”

“Oh… right.”

Man, this guy really had no idea what he
was up against.

“But it doesn’t actually matter if you kill
them or not,” I say, handing him my spare magazine. “Although, I guess that
would be beneficial.”

He looks at the magazine and then looks at
the gun.

“Do you know how to load this weapon?” I
ask.

“No. Not really. I’m used to shotguns and
hunting rifles. But I could probably figure it out.”

I give him a quick demonstration. Sliding
the magazine out of the handle… sliding it back in. I show him how to chamber a
round. I show him the safety switch. “Got it?” I ask.

He takes the gun back off me. “Yeah, I got
it. Easy. But wait, if you don’t want me to kill them, then what’s the point?”

“I just need you to keep them here,” I
explain. “Keep them distracted. Keep them occupied. While you keep them here,
I’m going to slip out the front door.”

The penny drops for John. He understands.
“But I’ll need to lock up after you,” he says.

I turn and head for the stairs. “Don’t
worry. I’ll get Nathan or Helen to do it.”

“They won’t help,” John says. “I told them
not to come up for anyone but me.”

“Just keep shooting,” I call out over my
shoulder. “Shoot slowly. Conserve the ammo.”

I make my way down the stairs, to the
basement door. I hear a gunshot. Followed by another one. John is firing too
quickly. At this rate, he’ll run out of bullets before I even get the chance to
get out of here.

I resist the urge to call out to John. I
don’t want to draw any attention back towards the front of the house.

I knock on the basement door quietly.
“Nathan? Helen? I need your help.”

There is no response. It’s possible that
they’ve retreated all the way down into the basement. It’s possible they’re
well away from the door. Which would mean they’d never hear me.

No. John told them to stay close. He told
them they needed to let him back in. I notice nails sticking out of the door,
the sharp and pointy end of the nails. This means they’ve boarded up the
basement door from the other side. Which means they would need to do this every
time they wanted to come up for a look around. And every time they pulled the
boards down to open the door, they’d have to board it back up. I notice other
holes in the door from where the nails had been hammered in previously. There’s
actually not that many holes, which means they really don’t come up all that
often.

Spending months locked up in a basement
would be enough to drive anyone insane.

I knock again.

Come
on.

Another gunshot. Followed quickly by two
more.

Dammit John, slow down.

He’s running out of bullets.

I’m running out of time.

But wait, if John is still up here, they
wouldn’t board the door up fully. They wouldn’t nail it shut. At least, I don’t
think they would.

I grab the handle and turn it, pushing on
the door. It opens slightly before someone from the other side pushes back,
slamming the door in my face.

“Nathan,” I hiss. “You need to help me.”

“John said not to open this door for anyone
but him. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“John is upstairs. He’s shooting at the
infected, at the sick people. We’ve lured them to the rear of the house so I
can leave out the front door.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. We promised each
other. We’ve talked about this. We don’t open this door for anyone. It’s the
rules.”

Another gunshot from upstairs.

“You hear that?” I ask. “That’s John. He’s
upstairs. He’s shooting the infected. I gave him my gun.”

Silence. I push against the door but Nathan
holds firm.

“John is running out of ammo,” I say.
“Please, you need to let me out the front door.”

“I can’t. I told you…”

I look over my shoulder at the front door.
“Fine. Have it your way. But I’m going to let myself out. And that means when I
leave, the front door will be unlocked. You’ll be exposed. I don’t want to do
that to you. But I will if I have to.”

A pause. I hear voices. Helen and Nathan
are arguing about what to do.

They’ve been isolated, they’ve been in the
dark for months. I know this is hard for them.

“You won’t be able to loosen the boards
without a hammer,” Nathan says. “You can’t do it.”

“I’ve got a military grade assault rifle
here. I’ll shoot the door open. I’ll destroy it.”

I say this half lying, half telling the
truth.

Am I bluffing?

Would I really do that to these people?

I don’t think so. Destroying the front door
would be a death sentence for these people.

But I’m getting desperate.

And desperation is a dangerous thing.

More gunshots from upstairs.

“I’m down to the last magazine,” John yells
down. “You better hurry!”

I bang on the door as hard as I can. “Come
on, Nathan. Please!

Another gunshot.

“I will open fire,” I say. “I will shoot
the door down. I will destroy it.”

More arguing. Helen is the voice of reason.
I need to get her on my side.

“Helen,” I say. “All you need to do is
unlock the front door and I’ll be gone. I’m out of here. You’ll never see me
again. You shut the door behind me as soon as I’m gone, OK?”

More arguing. I can’t make out what they’re
saying.

Yes. No. Maybe.

We
promised John. We promised each other. We’ve survived this long by following
the rules.

Come on, Helen. Rules were meant to be
broken.

I move towards the front of the house,
peering out the window. It’s still clear. The infected are still at the back of
the house.

But for how long?

The basement door swings open. It wasn’t
locked. It wasn’t boarded up.

Helen makes her way towards me, followed by
Nathan. Nathan has a hammer in his hand. He is holding on to it tight. And for
a split second I feel like he is coming towards me, coming to attack me.

But he is not…

He slides the table and bookshelf out of
the way. He then uses the hammer to loosen the boards that have been nailed
across the door to barricade it. There are three wooden boards in total. He
takes them down as quickly and as quietly as possible. He doesn’t want to alert
the sick things outside to our location. Each time he yanks on a nail, causing
the wooden board to creak, he stops, takes a breath.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here,”
Helen asks. “I know it doesn’t seem like it at the moment, but it is safe.”

“I can’t. My friends need me.”

Nathan removes the last board and unlocks
the door. “Helen,” he whispers. “Can you check to see if it’s clear?”

Helen looks out the window next to the
door. “There’s no one here. All those things must still be out the back of the
house.”

Nathan opens the door. “Go on,” he says to
me. “Get out of here.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I really appreciate this.
Good luck.”

The door slams behind me. Too loud for my
liking.

Nathan immediately begins to hammer the
boards back into place, securing the barricade. I guess there’s no point for
Nathan to be quiet anymore. There’s really no quiet way to hammer a door
closed.

And I wonder if it will be enough. Now that
the infected know there are people inside that house, I wonder if they will
stop.

But I already know the answer to this
question. They won’t stop. They never stop. The infected are relentless.

Have I screwed them over? Have I sentenced
them to death?

I push the thought from my mind.

I make my way back outside, back out on the
road. I have no idea what to do next. So I head for the village.