The Lost Journal Part 23

The two heavily armed soldiers both nodded again.

One of them said. "Just get him the h.e.l.l out of here. He's too valuable. He is all that matters. We'll be fine."

The driver jumped back in the car and slammed the door shut. The engine revved loudly and the Rolls Royce sped off. The back end of the huge luxury car slid out as it maneuvered around a pile of debris. The driver finally got the car back under control as it fish-tailed back and forth. The car straightened and took off at a hundred miles an hour. The driver kept his foot to the floor, driving straight for another block; before he realized the street was cut off up ahead. He then turned sharply down another side street and the noise faded away.

"Was that the car we saw at the casino?" Maria whispered.

"I don't know," Jack answered. "But how many other bright pink Rolls Royce's would there be in the city?"

I told them both to be quiet. I had no idea what these two soldiers were up to but I didn't want to draw their attention. Not while they were packing enough heat to equip a small army.

It was getting dark. More storm clouds.

The soldiers were both wearing black. They both put on gas masks. And night vision goggles. Why gas masks? I don't know. Maybe they figured the virus was airborne or something. I really hoped that wasn't the case. If it was, we were all screwed.

They smashed open the windows of a couple of cars parked on the side of the street. They reached in and released the handbrake. They then pushed these cars together, making a barricade across the street.

They opened the large suitcases that they had removed from the trunk of the Rolls Royce. The suitcases contained sentry guns. M134 sentinels. Extremely heavy duty. They were automatic machine guns that fired autonomously at moving targets.

They set these up further down the road.

The soldiers then took up firing positions behind their barricade of cars. They loaded up all their rifles, placing each so they could get to them easily. There would be no time to reload.

One of them checked their watch. Held his finger up to his ear. "Copy that. ETA five minutes. Green smoke indicates our location."

Off in the distance we could hear the howling, screaming moan of the infected.

One of the soldiers lit a flare and green smoke billowed up into the sky between the buildings.

"What do we do?" Jack whispered.

"We wait," I said. "If they get in deep, I'll provide covering fire."

"Shouldn't we tell them to get up here?" Maria asked.

"No," Jack whispered. "Do not call out to them. They'll kill us."

"I... I don't know," I said. "It's too risky."

I genuinely did not know what to do at that point. If we called out would they enforce the containment protocol?

Would they shoot to kill?

I did not know.

One of the machine gun sentinels came to life. Its multiple barrels spinning and firing.

Like I said, the sentinels track movement and fire upon moving targets. These particular sentinels were capable of firing over three thousand rounds of ammunition per minute. It was firing on full automatic.

It was not enough.

The infected came charging around the corner. A lot of them were being completely torn apart by the barrage of bullets.

But a lot were still getting through.

The second sentinel came to life.

It was an extremely effective line of fire. The infected were piling up in the street. It was an unbelievable display of power. Both Jack and Maria were watching in awe. But there was a problem. As good as these automatic weapons were; they were designed to shoot human beings.

Normal human beings.

None of the shots were headshots.

Every now and then, the bullet would hit square in the chest, and completely destroy the upper body, including the head. But most of the time, it wouldn't. So most of the shots were not kill shots. A lot of the infected still managed to crawl through.

I guess this was better than having them run at full speed.

The sheer number of infected that now filled the streets, meant that a lot had slipped through the sentinels line of fire.

They charged right for the men in black.

"We should get out of here," Jack said over the machine gun fire. "It's not safe."

"I need to help them," I answered.

"Help them? Their orders are to kill us!"

"They're soldiers," I said. "They're people. I need to help them."

Once the infected had run through the sentinels, the soldiers opened fire. They were good. Way better than I was. They were obviously trained snipers. They had most likely volunteered to stay behind and distract the chasing horde while the others made their getaway.

They had made the ultimate sacrifice.

The soldiers continued firing. When they ran out of bullets, they didn't bother reloading the rifle they had. They just picked up the next one.

When the horde got too close for comfort they would put down their sniper rifles, and pick up one of their bigger automatic machine guns. They would aim for the legs and bring them down so they could take them out.

For a minute it looked like they were going to make it.

They had created a little bit of breathing room.

One of the soldiers lit another green flare. Checked his watch. "Three minutes!"

But then another group of infected appeared from the other end of the street. They were about to be surrounded.

I told Jack and Maria to get inside the building.

Jack looked at me confused. "What? Why?"

I didn't answer him. I pushed him inside, told them both to move back and stay down. I told Jack if anything comes out of the dark, shoot. If there's more than one, come back out on to the track.

He nodded and moved inside the entrance to the building.

I opened fire.

The soldiers immediately looked up. I knew they could decide in a heartbeat to enforce the containment protocol. But I was hoping they would use their common sense and realize I was helping them.

I covered their rear. I managed to take out three infected with successive shots. Hopefully this would prove my worth to them.

It did.

They continued firing at the rapidly approaching infected.

Another thirty seconds pa.s.sed. They kept the infected at bay. But eventually they had to reload. This wasted a lot of time for them. The infected covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

The sentinels ran dry. They were knocked over.

In the distance, over the chatter of machine gun fire, I could hear the thumping of rotor blades.

It was their ride out of here.

It was too late.

The infected continued to cram into the streets. There were just too d.a.m.n many of them. They rushed the soldiers. In the end, they didn't stand a chance. The soldiers had been overwhelmed. The infected had completely overrun their position.

They were swarming, like ants.

The soldiers were set upon. Bitten. Their limbs were being ripped apart.

I lined them up in my sights.

I took aim.

I breathed in.

I exhaled and ended their suffering with a single bullet to the brain.

I slide along the mono-rail track so that I was just inside the station.

A few seconds later a Blackhawk helicopter appeared in the street. It hovered over the green smoke. I stayed hidden, just inside the monorail station, wondering if I should get their attention.

The chopper unleashed with its chain guns and all of its rockets, destroying a large chunk of the horde and completely destroying the road.

The chopper rose vertically up and out of the city.

The chance for flagging them down was gone.

Next to me, Jack and Maria were huddled together.

"Come on," I said. "Let's get inside before the infected realize we're here."

The Tower According to Maria and Jack we were now inside the Center Point Shopping Complex. It was completely dark. We waited a few minutes for our eyes to adjust. The shopping center connected a number of buildings in the very heart of Sydney, one of them being the Sydney Tower.

The tower was our destination. It would offer us protection, safety and shelter from all of the dangers lurking on the streets.

"How are these buildings connected?" I whispered.

"Enclosed walkways, like footbridges," Jack answered. "They criss-cross from one building to the next. Plus I think they're also connected underground."

"There's no way we can secure this place," Maria said. "It's too big."

"So what now?" Jack asked. "We don't really have a lot of options."

"We stick to the plan," I said. "We go up. Secure a few of the upper floors. This is a commercial area. It would've been shut down a few days ago. So I'm guessing there wouldn't be many people left in here."

Not after they were forced to evacuate, I thought.

Not after the military initiated their containment protocol.

Not after the Oz virus took over.

Once we made our way inside the shopping complex we had to zig-zag our way to the Sydney Tower. We pa.s.sed through two buildings, crossing over a couple of enclosed walkways that were two or three stories above the street level. After about an hour of sneaking around in the dark we finally found the emergency stairwell that would lead to the upper floors of the Sydney Tower.

According to the signage on the wall, we had another ninety-four floors to climb. Straight up.

Lucky for us the emergency lighting in the stairwell was still working.

"I wonder how long before the power runs out," Jack said.

"Not long," I answered.

"We should barricade this door, right?" Maria said. "I mean, we'll never be able to secure this place. It's way too big. It's all connected anyway. This whole complex is like, five times as big as the casino."

"But like you said before, Kenji. This is a commercial district," Jack pointed out. "These buildings and all the shops and stores and businesses would've been evacuated days ago. Plus the good thing about this tower is there are really only about eight levels up there."

I nodded. "So as long as we lock this door to the stairwell, we should be pretty safe."

"I hope so."

We shut the door and locked it as we entered the stairwell. We began the long, arduous climb to the top. Ninety-four freakin flights. I had to stop thinking about that and just concentrate on each step. One foot after the other. My dad used to always say, a thousand mile journey begins with a single step.

We had to stop and rest a couple of times. Catch our breath; drink some water. Stretch our legs. We continued to climb. We climbed in silence. Lost in our own thoughts. I'm not sure what the others were thinking about, but I could've guessed.

What the h.e.l.l was going on?

What the h.e.l.l do we do?

How are we going to survive?