I don"t want to think about it but I can"t help it. My mind automatically shows me the worst case scenario. I imagine a person, a normal, everyday person. A girl, maybe. Or an old woman. They are stuck in their apartment. They haven"t been outside. They can"t see what"s going on but they can hear it. And they know.
They know they are helpless.
Alone.
Trapped.
I wouldn"t wish that on my worst enemy.
This virus is a nightmare.
It"s weird though, they way they swarm in large groups. It"s almost like it"s a survival mechanism of the virus or something. Safety in numbers.
I don"t know.
Anyway, because of their tendency to hang out in large groups, the streets were sometimes full of infected people and sometimes they were empty. When the streets are full it looks like a riot, or a protest march or even the start line of a big charity fun run. But once they all clear out, and eventually they do, the streets become deserted, like the whole city has been evacuated and abandoned.
I guess that"s the reason Jack survived when he ran through the city. He"s gotta be one of the luckiest guys in the world right now. I mean, if he had taken a wrong turn he would"ve been surrounded and overwhelmed. He would"ve died. Or he would"ve led the infected right to us.
I shivered at the thought.
I watched the rest of the horde sprint around the corner to the next main intersection. They kept on going. Full steam ahead. "Single minded aggressiveness" as Doctor West described their behavior.
It certainly was.
The streets below continued to be emptied. A minute later it was deserted.
I guess it would be possible for someone to be alive down there.
Possible.
But not probable.
I exhaled on to the window, breathing on the cool gla.s.s so my breath fogged it up, obscuring my view of the outside world.
Even though we were high up in our tower, our castle in the clouds, we wouldn"t be safe for much longer. Not here. Not in the city. There were just too d.a.m.n many of them.
And Maria. She was important. We had to get word out that she was alive and resistant to the virus. We had a responsibility, a duty to the rest of the world to do this.
Feb 20th - The choices we make The city had been relatively quiet over the past couple of days. No gunfire. No explosions. I figured the military had completely fallen back. I figured the soldiers who had been left behind in the city were now dead.
We decided to have a meeting and plan our next move. We were sitting around a table that had been set for four people. A family maybe. Or a double date. The table was right next to one of the floor to ceiling windows. We looked out over the city as we discussed our fate.
"The military have bugged out," I said.
Maria furrowed her brow. "Huh? Bugged?"
"They"ve retreated back to the coast," I added. "Or the airport. The small force they left behind to occupy the infected are gone. They"re most likely dead."
"How do you know that?" Maria asked. "You don"t. You can"t."
Maria was in denial. She knew being alone in this city was not a good thing.
"Trust me," I said trying not to scare her. "They did the same thing in Woomera. I was there. I experienced it."
"So what happens now?" Jack said. "What happened in Woomera? How exactly did you get away?"
"I got lucky. I ran."
"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"
"I was in deep. I was smack bang in the middle of an outbreak. Command had called in an airstrike to contain the infection. We were able to get out of the danger zone just in time."
"Wait a minute," Maria said. "So you"re saying, after the military falls back, they call in an airstrike?"
"That"s what they did in Woomera," I answered.
"And then they nuked the joint?"
I nodded.
"So you"re saying they could be gearing up to do the exact same thing right now?"
"Maybe."
"We have to get out of here," Jack said.
Maria wasn"t so sure. "There"s no point if they"re just going to drop a nuclear bomb. We"ll never get far enough away."
"Yeah, Maria is right," I said. "But there"s a good chance they won"t call in a nuclear strike."
"Why the h.e.l.l wouldn"t they?" Jack asked. "This place is crawling with infected."
"They might not call in the big guns because they"ve already lost control. Airstrikes and nuclear weapons won"t stop the virus now. It"s beyond the point of no return."
"We can"t take that risk," Jack said. "I mean, I don"t want to say it but the military were keeping the infected occupied. And now that they"re gone or dead or whatever, there"s nothing to keep the infected occupied. This means, there"s more chance that they"ll find us."
"Yeah," I said. "Exactly."
"So we"re on our own now?"
"Well, realistically, we were always on our own," Maria said calmly. "We survived against all odds. No thanks to the military or anyone else. We survived. And now in order to stay alive we need to plan ahead. We need to be smart. It"s the only way."
Maria continued to surprise me. "I couldn"t have said it better."
"OK," Jack said. "What"s our plan? What"s our next move? We can"t stay up here forever."
"I know you both don"t want to hear this, but we need to contact the military," I said. "We need to let them know that Maria is still alive. We need to make sure they know she is one hundred percent immune to the Oz virus. Maria is special. She is valuable. If we can get the word out, if we can let the military know our position, they will send help."
"We"re gonna need radios or walkie-talkies or something," Jack said. "Good ones. Long range."
"We can start looking downstairs in the shopping complex," Maria suggested. "There might be an electronics store or something."
"And I think we should plan an escape route as well," I added. "Just in case this place becomes compromised like the casino did."
"We"ll need a getaway car," Jack said. "There"s got to be an underground parking lot around here somewhere. I"m sure of it."
Maria suggested finding a car with strong bull bar for extra protection.
We all looked out over the city. We didn"t want to leave our tower but we couldn"t just sit here and do nothing.
"It"s safe up here," Maria whispered. "We"re out of harm"s way. We can see everything. But we have to go."
Feb 23rd - We should be dead It feels weird writing that down but it"s the honest truth. We barely got out of the city with our lives.
I"m exhausted, my hands, fingers, arms, legs every part of my body is shaking and trembling with exhaustion. Jack and Maria are sleeping right now. But I figured I better get this down before I fall asleep.
Just in case.
Just in case what?
Why can"t this wait until morning?
Why is it so important to get it all down right now?
I don"t know the answers to those questions.
All I know is, we"re lucky to be alive. And I"m gonna get these words down on to the page just in case I don"t get another chance.
We made our plans. We made them high up in the Sydney Tower, the castle in the clouds. We knew we had to make a move. We had to do something. The city had fallen quiet. And this was bad. It meant the last of the remaining soldiers were dead. It meant that more and more infected were walking back into the city.
So we had to act.
We were doing the right thing. We needed an exit strategy and we needed to contact the military. Simple. So we made our plans. And we were careful.
But we could not have planned for what happened. No one could have.
We left the safety of the tower and climbed down the ninety-four flights of stairs to the shopping complex. We were looking for supplies and most importantly a reliable, long range walkie-talkie. Walking through the shopping complex was still a shock, even though we had been down there already. I couldn"t get over how empty it was. It was like a sh.e.l.l, or a husk or something. It felt so lonely and quiet.
Jack suggested we try the security room of the shopping complex.
It was there we found a couple of walkie-talkies.
The problem was these radios were probably no better than the ones we had found previously in the casino. They would most likely only have a short range and be designed to be used within the shopping complex. But they would have to do. At the end of the day they were better than nothing.
We were just about to test them out to see if they worked when suddenly the windows began to vibrate and shudder. I think we were on the third floor. Jack had moved out into the hallway, over to the window to see what was going on. He was looking down at the streets below. Maria and I moved to the window as well. The noise was getting louder, the vibrations were getting stronger but we still couldn"t see anything.
"What the h.e.l.l is that noise?" Maria asked.
I told her to back away from the window. I grabbed Jack by the shoulders and pulled him down so we were hidden below the window sill.
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"Choppers," I whispered.
Slowly and methodically two Apache gunships hovered into the streets, about two floors up from where we were.
"Do you think they"re looking for survivors?" Jack said. "Maybe it"s a rescue squad for Maria?"
"How would they know we"re even here?" Maria asked.
"I don"t think it"s a rescue," I said.
"Well, what the h.e.l.l are they doing? And where did they come from?"
"Maybe the airport?" I said. "It"s probably their base of operations."
"So what the h.e.l.l are they doing?"
"I don"t know? Reconnaissance? Maybe they really are looking for survivors."
"Well, whatever they"re doing, I wish they"d do it somewhere else," Maria said. "They"re making too much noise."
Maria was right. The rotor blades were the loudest thing in the world at that point in time. And the noise was echoing off the buildings. The deep thumping noise was being amplified.
"We should go," I said.
"Wait!" Jack said. "Look. It"s another chopper."
Another chopper came in. A Blackhawk. With troops. A small team. Probably Special Forces, I thought. They abseiled down from the chopper, into the middle of the street. For a second, I thought maybe they really were here for us. But then they started moving along the street, in the complete opposite direction.
I haven"t been able to stop thinking about these guys. I have no idea why they were inserted into the middle of the city. What was their objective? What was the point? From where I was watching it looked like a suicide mission. And unfortunately for these brave men, that"s what it turned out to be. I"m guessing the noise of the rotor blades is what initially attracted such a large number of the infected into the area. Then again, maybe they were already there. Hiding. Waiting.
Within a minute of the soldiers being on the ground they were forced to open fire on multiple targets. The Apaches above provided covering fire but it wasn"t enough. Another group of infected charged the soldiers. The soldiers were being swarmed. Their position was being overrun.
This is why I haven"t been able to stop thinking about them. They were only on the streets for a few minutes. There was nothing they could do.
The soldiers disappeared into a building across the street. I have no idea what became of them. But I"m guessing they didn"t last long. Once the soldiers had disappeared, the Apache gunships retreated out of the area. They left as quickly as they had arrived. They flew vertically up and out of the city.
"The choppers are leaving?" Maria asked. "They"re just leaving? But there"s more infected down there."
She was right. The infected now filled the streets. And we could hear them. It sounded like they were all around us. Those Apache"s needed to clear out the horde. They needed to unleash their missiles.
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. "c.r.a.p. I left it in the security room."