The Lost Journal Part 12

I unstrapped myself from my seat and fumbled around in one of the medical kits.

I gave him another shot of morphine. Drake is usually terrified of needles. Terrified to the point where he pa.s.ses out whenever he's about to get a shot or a vaccination injection. But at that point in time, he didn't notice the needle.

He didn't even flinch when it punctured his skin.

His breathing began to slow.

I told him it was going to be all right even though I knew that it was not. I told him I was sorry. Sorry for everything. I told him that it was an honor to have served with him.

I readjusted the oxygen mask on his face, making sure it was nice and secure.

As the morphine and the oxygen warmed and calmed him down he began to slip into what I knew would be a dreamless sleep.

I checked my watch again. We had three minutes.

We were in bad shape. Drake had lost a lot of blood. I had inhaled a lot of smoke.

The Humvee continued to pick up speed as we raced the clock. Somewhere off in the night sky were the approaching jets. F16 falcons. Or maybe A10 warthogs. They were on their way. They would not wait for us.

High Speed.

It gets a little hazy here.

But this is what I remember.

It's starting to come back to me little bits and pieces. I was feeling weird and dizzy. At first I thought I must've inhaled a large amount of smoke. And the smoke must've been way more toxic than I initially thought.

But the real reason I was feeling so d.a.m.n weird?

The doctor had hooked me up to a bottle of nitrous oxide in his haste, instead of oxygen.

I was tripping out.

It was surreal, like I was having an out of body experience.

I wasn't even scared of being blown up at that point. I was more concerned with Drake. He was hurt. He was in bad shape.

I remembered I'd given him some morphine. And I'm pretty sure the doctor had given him some morphine as well. So he was well and truly out of it.

Imagine my surprise when he started talking to me.

I remember the Humvee ride was a b.u.mpy one but I didn't seem to care. The speed we were travelling at was definitely not safe for the narrow laneways but again, I didn't seem to care.

I focused on my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Just like the doctor said.

I looked over at Drake and the other men. The pilots. And I wondered if they were going to die.

I wondered whether or not there should be someone in here besides me just in case these critically injured soldiers decide to flat line or something. Would I be able to resuscitate them if I needed to?

"I don't think they're too worried about us dying." Drake said.

"Huh? What?"

"I said, I don't think they're too worried about us dying. As a matter of fact, I don't think they're even taking us to the hospital."

I looked over at Drake again. My vision was blurry. I couldn't see him clearly. But it looked like his leg was bleeding heavily from the bullet wound and the bite wound. "I...I thought you were asleep. We pumped you full of morphine."

"Yeah, I am asleep. You're having a psychotic episode, genius. You're hallucinating."

"What?"

"And I don't think that's oxygen you're sucking on."

I followed the tube from my face mask to the blue bottle it was connected to. On the little pressure gauge on top of the bottle it read: NO2 - Nitrous oxide.

AKA - happy gas.

I took another deep breath. In and out. Just like the doctor said.

I should've been scared. I should've been terrified that we were about to be blown up and vaporized. But I wasn't scared at all. I was as high as a kite in a hurricane.

I should've taken the mask off.

But then Drake spoke again. "Leave it on. You might as well enjoy these last few minutes of your life."

"What the h.e.l.l is that suppose to mean?"

"You really think we're going to get out of here alive? You think we can outrun those jets screaming their way towards us faster than the speed of sound? You do realize that it took us ten minutes to drive from the entrance of the slum to where they dropped us off. I'm no mathematical genius but even if we're driving at sixty miles per hour right now we're still not gonna make it."

"Shut up Drake. We'll make it."

I felt like I was trying to convince myself more than anyone.

"And just what the h.e.l.l did you mean by they're not taking us to the hospital?"

"Open your eyes, Kenji. It's over. We've lost control. The virus is spreading faster than they can contain it. Do you really think they're going to take us all in and patch us all up? I've been bitten. I'm infected. Do you think the medic hasn't radioed ahead and informed them of our situation? If we get out of here, and trust me, that's a big 'if', they're not going to risk taking us into the hospital, they're not going to risk another outbreak over me, a lowly grunt. I'm as good as dead. You shoulda saved me the trouble when you had the chance."

"You're wrong. They'll take us in. They'll get us fixed. We don't even know that you're infected."

"Doesn't matter if I'm not infected. Easier to get rid of me. Safer. Sacrifice the few to save the many."

Gordon's words coming out of Drake's mouth. Would they really kill us?

"Yeah they would. They got bigger problems to worry about now."

"Bigger? Like what?"

"Like making sure no one finds out about this unholy mess. Like making sure this virus doesn't spread out of the desert to any of the cities. The only way to make sure that happens is to blow this place up. And what do you think they are hiding out in the Woomera military testing site? Whatever it is, I bet they'll do anything to stop it from getting out. This air strike is just the beginning. You think a couple of soldiers are going to change their mind? h.e.l.l, you think a few thousand refugees are going to change their minds?"

Dammit Drake. He had it all figured out. Maybe being on death's door made it easier for him to see the grim reality of it. Maybe I knew it all along as well. Maybe I was just too scared to admit it, to say it out loud.

The other day when Franco was bitten, I looked to the east and thought of running away. Maybe I still could. Maybe. If I got out of this slum alive, if we survived the air strike I could get out of here. I could warn Rebecca before it's too late.

"Yeah that's a great plan. Again, not that you're going to get out of this slum alive, but let's just say hypothetically you do make it out of here. Where are you going to go? How are you going to survive? You'll end up infected. Just like me. Just like these poor refugees. Oh, you think you'll run away? Run all the way to Sydney and warn Rebecca? How are you going to do that? How are you going to make it that far? Have you thought this through at all? And what is she going say to you when you get there? You think she's going to welcome you in with open arms and give you a big hug? You're a goner. You should never have joined the marines. You're not a warrior. You never will be. You're a coward. A lying coward. Not that it matters anymore what you are. Because in a couple of minutes you're a dead man. Just like me. Just like the rest of us."

"Shut up, Drake."

At that moment the Humvee ran over a pothole or a ditch or maybe even a crowd of people and my a.s.s momentarily left the seat. Maybe it was the first missiles of the air strike.

I don't know what it was.

But the ride was a b.u.mpy one. The speed the Humvee was travelling at was not safe for the narrow laneways.

The Humvee swerved and I was thrown back in my seat. The tires screeched and the brakes locked up. The Humvee spun out of control and I lost all sense of direction. Left or right, up or down. I had no idea what was happening. I didn't know where I was. The only thing I knew for certain was that Drake was shot, bitten, bleeding. He was dying right in front of me but he was one hundred percent right about everything.

January 27th Escape.

I woke up in a hospital bed. I was alone. There were five other beds in the room but they were all empty. The white sheets were all covered in blood.

No sign of Drake.

No sign of the pilots.

The one and only window of the room was open slightly. It was dawn. The first rays of sunshine were just appearing over the horizon.

I wondered where they were keeping Drake.

I went to get out of my bed but then I noticed both my right leg and my right arm were bound to the rail guard with Velcro straps. My left leg and wrist were not tied down.

I untied myself quickly and jumped out of bed. My head was throbbing and I was dizzy. I slowly made my way out into the corridor, using the walls for support.

I expected the hospital to be full. I was expecting to see nurses and doctors and patients everywhere.

But there was no one.

The hospital was deserted.

I checked a few other rooms and saw the same thing each time. Empty beds. Blood stained sheets.

But the last room I checked was different. The last room still had bodies in the beds.

Civilians.

They were all dead. Bullet holes in their heads.

The room stank of death. I felt dizzy again. I doubled over and threw up. I fell to my knees and crawled out of the room.

At the far end of the corridor was a team of guys in bright yellow HAZMAT suits. They were coming this way.

They were armed.

It dawned on me then that these guys weren't regular soldiers. They weren't U.S. Marines or Rangers or Special Forces. And there's no way they were part of the Australian Army.

There was something about them. Their weapons were different. Their radios were different. Even their HAZMAT suits were slightly different. They looked more advanced, less bulky, more mobile.

It was clear to me then. These guys were powerful.

And deadly.

And they were doing the dirty work of whoever was in charge of this mess.

I had no idea who that might be, still have no idea. But I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't hanging around to find out.

I stayed low and crawled around the corner of the hallway. Once I was out of sight, I bolted. I did not look back.

I made it to the main entrance of the hospital. To my surprise the news van we had seen the other day was parked directly out front. The hood of the van had been smashed in like it had been in a pretty serious accident.

The satellite dish on top of the roof had been shot to pieces.

All the tyres had been shot out. Bullets holes streaked down the side of the van.

I heard gunshots coming from back inside the hospital. The noise scared the h.e.l.l out of me, sent a cold shiver down my spine, forced me to keep running.

I've been running for days now.

I had to get out of their while I still could. We had lost control. The immigration centers, the town. Everything. The people in the towns weren't so much under quarantine as they were prisoners.

Prisoners on death row.

I have no doubt that Command were about to order a nuclear strike.

As Gordon said, sacrifice the few to save the many.

It doesn't matter if those people are innocent. Doesn't matter if they're healthy. Command weren't prepared to take that risk.

And it makes me sick to my stomach.

Their top priority is to contain the virus by any means necessary. Nuclear strikes included. And I wanted nothing to do with it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

No way.

So I'm leaving. I'm running away.

Again.

Yeah I know.

I must be crazy. I could get court marshalled for this. They could lock me up and throw away the key.