Kenji blinked a couple of times and shook his head. "OK, that's enough talk. You’re coming with us."
"What?" I said. "We can’t bring him with us!"
"I’m not leaving him here by himself. And if what he said about the virus is true then he needs to be held accountable."
The man chuckled.
"What’s so funny?" Kenji asked.
"You don’t get it do you? There’s no one left to hold me accountable. It’s over."
The man was starting to scare us both. I think he was drunk. So we decided it would be best if Kenji kept guard over him in the penthouse.
As I was leaving Kenji grabbed me by the arm and took me out into the hallway. He grabbed me kind of hard and went right off at me for wandering around on my own.
"What were you thinking?" he said, struggling to keep his voice low. "We haven't secured the rest of the building yet. And you know the security cameras don't show the rooms."
The truth was I wasn't thinking at all. I was sleep deprived, exhausted. I was in shock. "I'm sorry." I said. "I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I kept seeing dead people floating in the water. Some of them were moving. Some of them were looking right at me."
He took a deep breath. "I know it’s hard. But that’s why we have to stick together. We’re stronger as a group. If just one person decides to act alone then we’re all in trouble."
I knew he was right. I don’t what I would’ve done if Maria or Jack or Kim went off by themselves. I had to stop being so selfish. I was part of a group now and we were all relying on each other to survive.
"Try and get some rest," he said. "I’m going to stay here and keep watch. I don’t trust this guy one bit. And try not to wake the others. They need their sleep. We’ll be making some big, important decisions tomorrow and everyone needs to be switched on mentally."
I descended the stairs to our floor in a daze and slipped back into our room as quietly as I could. Kim was the only one awake although she was fighting to keep her eyes open.
"What happened? Where did you go?" she asked.
"I just went for a walk," I whispered. "I couldn’t sleep."
"Rebecca, don’t scare us like that. Where is Kenji?"
"He’s still upstairs. He said he’ll be down soon."
I felt bad about lying but I could tell she was exhausted. Jack and Maria were still in a deep sleep and as soon as Kim knew everyone was OK, she passed out as well. I collapsed on my bed feeling angry with myself for putting the group in danger. What if they had all decided to come and search for me? What if something happened? It would’ve been my fault and I’m not sure I’d be able to live with myself with that kind of guilt. Coming to grips with how stupid I’d been was not making it any easier to sleep.
Chapter 29
The night seemed to drag on forever. It must've been late but I was still wide awake.
I was shaking uncontrollably and this time it wasn't because I was soaking wet. This time it was because I just found out that one of the people responsible for the Oz Virus and all the death and destruction and chaos was in this very building.
I was not handling this confronting fact very well. I continued to shake. I looked at the others sleeping. How did they do it? How did they just switch off?
I didn't know what to do. My body needed sleep but it wasn’t shutting down. It’s like my brain wasn’t listening. I suddenly remembered the morphine pill the crazy doctor upstairs gave me. The container was still in my pocket. I took it out and tried to read the writing on the label.
I popped the lid and put the tiny pill in the palm of my hand. I wondered if it would stop me from shaking. I wondered if it could make me forget about the virus, the destruction, the death. I tried to remember everything the Doctor had told me about it when he was rambling off all those facts earlier. I remember he said something about how it was highly potent and highly addictive. I remember he also said the word morphine was derived from Morpheus the god of dreams who was the son of Hypnos, god of sleep.
How could one little pill be so strong? How could it be so addictive?
I continued to shake uncontrollably. Next to me the others were sleeping and snoring. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to be sleeping and snoring. I wanted Morpheus and Hypnos to come and take me away. To send me to sleep and show me dreams where I’m lying on a beach on an island in the pacific. I wanted to hear the waves roll up the white sand. I wanted to feel the sun tan and burn my skin.
I wanted to forget everything I had seen today.
I raided the mini bar and found a bottle of water that according to the price list cost eight dollars. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. I placed the pill on the end of my tongue and washed it down.
Outside, fat, heavy rain was falling and pelting the window. Another flash of lightning lit up the night sky, followed by some more thunder. It suddenly dawned on me then that maybe the lightning and the thunder were more bombs and explosions. It was a frightening thought. I tried to imagine what Sydney would look like in the morning, if it would ever recover from this attack. But I forced myself to clear my head. I needed to sleep. Kenji said we had to make big, important decisions tomorrow. I guess he was talking about our survival. Like whether we should make a run for it or hide out here for a few more days.
If we were smart and planned ahead we would have a greater chance of survival. If we made poor decisions it could cost us our lives. Up until this point I think we had been lucky. And that scared me. Sooner or later our luck was bound to run out.
I drank the rest of the eight dollar water and suddenly felt the effects of the morphine starting to kick in. It hit hard. I began to feel light headed. I don’t know why but instead of getting into my comfy bed, I decided to lie down on the floor to stretch my back out. A few minutes later my mind seemed to slow. All thoughts of the death, and carnage and wondering if this really was a zombie apocalypse melted away. Suddenly I thought everything was going to be all right. Even when I started sinking deeper and deeper into the carpet, I knew everything was going to be fine. My mind was finally empty of bad thoughts.
I remembered this one time when I snuck into Kenji’s house late one night for a movie marathon session. I had to sneak in a lot because his parents really didn’t like me and they didn’t like that we spent so much time together. Maybe because they thought Kenji should be with a Japanese girl or something. Anyway, he wanted me to watch this movie called Yojimbo. It was an Akira Kurasawa movie. It was the movie that The Bodyguard was based on. I’d made him watch it a million times so now he was making me watch the original version. But there was a problem. The only copy he had was on a shelf in his dad’s study. And his dad’s study was strictly off limits. We went to look for it anyway. I remember I was nervous, maybe even a little scared. If his dad found us in his personal office he would’ve killed me. I remember I found this ancient looking scroll on his desk. The writing was all in Japanese. I asked Kenji what it meant.
"It’s the book of emptiness," he said.
"The what?"
"It’s the belief that our minds should be empty. A cup is made from clay or glass. But it’s the emptiness of the cup we desire."
"Oh, like in The Bodyguard when Kevin Costner is in the snow at night and he closes his eyes to try and shoot the bad guy."
"Exactly."
That moment in Kenji’s dad’s study has always stuck with me. And just then I felt like I was that emptiness he was talking about. I felt like I was that cup. I was Kevin Costner, kneeling in the snow with my eyes closed.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear Morpheus and Hypnos calling to me. They wanted to recite the Iliad while we sat around a campfire. They wanted to discuss why the Gods amused themselves by interfering with the lives of mortals.
The morphine was pumping through my veins and around my body. According to the crazy Doctor, no other narcotic analgesic is more effective or superior than morphine. I will vouch for that. I will testify. Praise the Gods.
As the morphine went to work directly on my central nervous system I could feel myself slipping into the black hole of sleep and unconsciousness. I felt like I was sinking and falling. And it felt good.
Just before blackness consumed everything Kenji walked into the room. He leant over me and tried to tell me something. He whispered into my ear, "Tomorrow, they're going to nuke Melbourne."
My eyes were closed and I felt like I was wrapped up in an invisible electric blanket that was turned way up on the highest setting. It sounded like he said they were going to drop a nuclear bomb on Melbourne. But I couldn't be sure. Because at that point I was lying on a beach in the pacific and the water was gently rolling up the white sand. The sun was tanning and burning my skin.
Chapter 30
Four to six hours.
That’s how long the effects of morphine are supposed to last according to the Doctor, assuming he was a Doctor.
Euphoria
Relaxation.
Sedation.
Four to six hours.
I wasn't sure but I felt like it'd been longer than six hours. Not that I was complaining. I was unconscious. I was in a black hole. I could've been dead for all I knew but it felt good and I didn't care.
I didn’t care because I was hanging out on Bondi beach with Maria and Jack. The sand was clean and white and there were no footprints. We spent the whole day surfing. And I could actually surf. When the sun had set over the water, we set up an outdoor movie theatre and watched all the greats. Rocky Four. The Karate Kid. Top Gun.
Morpheus, the god of dreams had come through with the goods.
But then something weird happened. Instead of landing his F-15 Eagle on the aircraft carrier at the end of the movie, Tom Cruise, aka Maverick, turned his jet towards Australia and hit the afterburners. He flew into Sydney Harbor low and fast. He blew up the bridge and everyone on it.
I managed to survive the initial explosion somehow. I landed ass first in the water below. I swam and struggled to the surface. But even when I broke the surface, I couldn’t breathe. I looked around for Kenji but I couldn’t see him, I looked for Jack, for Maria, for Kim but they were nowhere to be seen. I started to drown. I reached for something to hold on to. Anything. My hands found something soft, something floating in the water. It was a body. A human body. But I held on to it for dear life. I got my senses and my bearings. High above me, the search and destroy helicopters continued to search and destroy. I tried to swim away but I couldn’t move. I was trapped, surrounded by thousands of floating corpses. I was the only one alive. I was alone.
I woke slowly. I was sore and my limbs were stiff.
Kim was shaking me. "Wake up, Rebecca," she said urgently.
I could hear laughter.
"Huh? What is it?"
"It's Kenji. He's not back yet."
The others were sitting around the small table in the corner of the room. They were laughing and eating some cereal.
"You haven't told them yet?" I asked Kim.
"I didn't know what to say," she whispered. "I told them he went to get water."
"Rise and shine sleepy head," Maria teased.
"Why did you sleep on the floor?" Jack asked. "Did Maria sleep walk over to your bed and kick you out? She tends to do that sometimes."
"I do not!"
"Yeah you do. And you snore."
Maria leant over the table and punched Jack on the arm.
"Hey, shouldn’t Kenji be back by now?" Maria asked. "I know he's a big bad soldier and can probably take care of himself. But I still don't like the idea of people just going off by themselves without consulting the group first, you know?"
I sat on the edge of the bed gingerly, regretting my decision to sleep on the floor. "There's something I need to tell you guys," I said. "Last night, I... I left the room. I went up to the penthouse floor."
Maria almost choked on some cereal. "You what? You snuck out by yourself?"
"Yeah. I know it was stupid."
"Really stupid!" Jack added. "And not to mention dangerous."
Maria wiped some milk of her chin. "So why did you do it?" She had a look on her face like she was hurt, like I had betrayed her trust.
"I couldn't sleep," I said. "I just wanted to see the harbor. I wanted to see the bridge. To see if it was really gone."
Jack looked like he was going to yell at me but I was saved from another verbal assault by Kenji who walked into the room with the crazy Doctor. Kenji had the Doctor's hands tied together with electrical tape. I guess he was our prisoner now.
"Who the hell is this," Kim asked.
"This is Doctor West," answered Kenji as he pushed the Doctor into the far corner of the room. "Stay there. Don’t move." he said.
"Where did you find him?"
"Rebecca found him last night, upstairs."
"And why do you have his hands tied?"
"Well, he’s saying some pretty crazy stuff."
Doctor West was standing in corner quietly. He didn’t seem to mind that we were talking about him or that he had his hands tied or that he had a shotgun pointed at his head.
"Like what?" Kim demanded.
"Like he created the Oz Virus."
The room fell silent. Jack and Maria had completely stopped eating. One of them dropped their spoon and it clanged loudly on the wooden table.
