A World on Fire: Secret Apocalypse Book 6 (Secret Apocalypse Series) Read online

  A WORLD ON FIRE

  Book 6 in the Secret Apocalypse series.

  By James Harden

  Contents

  No Escape

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  No Escape but Death

  If you see God in this world, kill him.

  He is not God.

  He is a liar.

  Doctor Kumar Singh.

  (The New World.)

  No Escape

  There is fire.

  All around me.

  And this is hell. This Fortress. This research facility. Hell on earth.

  It is hell because there is pain, and suffering, and torture, and death.

  There is constant death.

  But this is the way of life in the Fortress. This is the way of life now, in the outback, in the desert. In Australia. Across the world.

  Since the outbreak.

  Since the Oz virus.

  Since Project Salvation.

  Life is torture and pain and death.

  Life is suffering.

  And this is the ordinary world now. Another day in the life of anyone who was unfortunate enough to have survived this long.

  So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I shouldn’t be surprised that the man in the gas mask, a man, an educated man, a doctor with military training, had organized and executed a nuclear missile strike.

  Why should I be surprised by that?

  And just so we are completely clear, just so I am completely accurate, it was three nuclear missiles.

  He launched three goddamn nuclear warheads. They were launched high into the sky, high into the atmosphere. And then they erupted and detonated and they turned the sky white. And then they turned the sky red. And orange. And yellow.

  The rescue team of Evo Agents, their choppers and Ospreys and other unidentified flying aircraft, crashed to the ground in a massive fireball of destruction.

  And now we are stuck. We are stuck in this circle of Hell that is known as the Fortress.

  There is no escape.

  One of the Evo Agents had taken cover right next to me. We are seeking shelter behind an armored Humvee. He slowly gets to his feet.

  He checks on the man in the gas mask. And then he checks on me. “Are you hurt?” he asks. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie. Because I am not all right. I’m pretty goddamn far from all right. And I hate the fact that he checked on the man in the gas mask first. I hate it. And I know this is a bad sign. I know this says a lot.

  “I’m going to check on the others,” he says. “Stay right here. Stay down. I’ll be right back. We’re getting out of here.”

  He says his name is Miller. John Miller. He is an Evo Agent, which means he is one of the best. It means he is a former Special Forces soldier turned private mercenary.

  It means he is a super soldier.

  It means he is a piece of property owned by the company.

  He runs off, to help the others, to help his dying brothers.

  He says we’re getting out of here.

  But he is wrong.

  I’m starting to realize we will never leave this place. There is no escape. And I’m OK with that. I’ve come to terms with it.

  Doctor Hunter once told me that very thing when we were locked up and held captive by General Spears. He had said, “There is no escape from death. No escape but death.”

  So maybe that’s my ticket out of here.

  Death.

  What’s the point of escaping anyway? What’s waiting for us on the outside? What’s waiting for us above ground?

  A future?

  A safe haven?

  A refugee camp?

  A home?

  No. There is nothing.

  Nothing but zombies and nano-swarms and nuclear fallout. Nothing but a goddamn nuclear winter. Nothing but more death and more pain and suffering and starving and dying of thirst.

  More carnage. More Chaos.

  And this is what the man in the gas mask had wanted. All along. From day one. Before day one. From the very beginning. This is what he wanted. And this is what he wants.

  Right now he is kneeling down about ten feet away from me. He appears to be meditating. He is watching his plan happen and materialize and unfold before his very eyes. He is watching intently because I don’t think he even planned on making it this far, on living this long. He was supposed to die in the control center. He was going to die on camera with me and Maria. We were all supposed to be eaten alive by a nano-swarm.

  But that didn’t happen. We were rescued. By Daniel’s team of super soldiers, rescued by the company. And now this psychopath gets to see the final stage of his plan fall into place.

  He wanted to set the world on fire and burn down the old Empires. He wanted to create a new world, a new history. A purging fire is what he called it. And we have given him this moment. We have gifted it to him. We wrapped it up in a nice little package and we put a bow on it. We have given him a front row seat to his twisted dream, a front row seat to a nuclear apocalypse.

  So maybe we should stay down here. At least down here we are safe from the fallout, safe from the coming winter. Except staying down here is not really safe at all.

  It is probably much worse.

  It is dark and confined. It is a maze of tunnels and prisons.

  It is full of monsters.

  So what do we do? Where the hell do we go?

  I have no idea.

  I see a gun. A hand gun. I walk slowly towards it.

  I don’t know who this gun belongs to. A dead man probably.

  I’m not sure how many Evo Agents just died in the crash landing and the fireball that followed.

  A lot.

  Most of them.

  I look around the large storage hangar that is the Vehicle Access Point. Daniel is checking on his men, or what’s left of his men. I was right. There are not many left. Most of them died when the aircraft crash landed.

  I count seven survivors.

  These are the men who were lucky enough to have been ordered into the Fortress to rescue Maria and the other people high on their priority list.

  Doctor Hunter.

  The man in the gas mask.

  Kim.

  I say they are lucky because the men that stayed above ground with the vehicles are now dead.

  They have been burned and crushed and vaporized.

  So yeah, the Evo Agents who were ordered down here, into this hellish place known as the Fortress, they were lucky.

  And the ones that just survived the fireball, they are even luckier. If I was a superstitious person I would say that these Evo Agents have just about used up all their good fortune for today.

  But I am not superstitious.

 
; I am a realist. And the reality of our situation?

  We’re all going to die down here.

  The surviving Evo Agents are trying to radio to any possible survivors above ground. But there are no survivors above ground. No way.

  There is no way anyone survived three nuclear warheads. There is no way they survived the crash landing, the fireball.

  Kenji has retrieved a fire extinguisher from somewhere and now he is extinguishing the flames. He is doing this because he is the kind of person who can think clearly and logically under pressure. He is the kind of person who has the capability to do whatever it takes to help those around him.

  Big Ben is helping one of the Evo Agents. And by ‘helping’ I mean he is holding his hand as he dies, as he bleeds and burns to death.

  That now makes six.

  Six surviving Evo Agents.

  Kim and Maria are both strapped into stretchers. They have both been injected with heavy duty pain killers and sedatives. They are oblivious to everything that is happening around them. If the Evo Agents hadn’t had the good sense to put them down behind the cover of the armored Humvees while we waited for the extraction, they would’ve died in their sleep.

  But the Evo Agents, or rather Daniel in particular, did have the good sense. He knows they are both extremely valuable priorities, targets, specimens.

  For the company.

  So he hid them, behind an armored tank of a Humvee. And this decision has saved both of their lives.

  Jack is kneeling next to his sister and Maria. He has a look of absolute fear on his face. He is making sure they are all right. He is crouched over them, trying to protect them from every single messed up thing that is happening right now. This means, and I’m sure he’s aware of this, it means that he is basically acting as a human shield for them. If another helicopter was to come burning and crashing through the access point, he would cover Maria and Kim with his own body. He would do this because… because that’s just the kind of guy Jack is.

  I am now standing over the handgun. I pick it up.

  It is most probably a police issued Glock, or a military standard Beretta.

  Anyway, I pick this gun up, and through all the chaos and fire and smoke and confusion, I walk slowly towards the man in the gas mask. I walk slowly with a gun in my hand.

  And somehow, through all this chaos, the crash landings and nuclear explosions, I am alone with the man in the gas mask and he is still kneeling down, like he is meditating.

  He is calm. He is at peace.

  He is some sort of psychotic Zen master.

  His hands are handcuffed behind his back. He is bleeding from his stomach from where I stabbed him. The Evo Agents patched him up but the wound is still bleeding. The bandage has turned a dark red.

  I place the barrel of the gun against his temple. I flick the safety off. I know killing him will serve no purpose at this point. No purpose but to fulfill a revenge fantasy

  A want.

  A desire.

  A promise.

  I once told Kenji, promised Kenji, just after we had survived the destruction and the bombing of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the massacre, I told him, in the shadows of the ruined bridge, in the shadows of the smoke that filled the sky, I promised him that we would find out who was responsible. We would find them and we would make them pay.

  Well, I found him.

  Doctor Tariq Sayid.

  Doctor Kumar Singh.

  The man in the gas mask.

  And I want to kill him. I really, really, really want to kill him.

  Because he deserves it. Boy, does he deserve it.

  “Don’t do it,” Doctor Hunter says.

  The good doctor, the one handed doctor, is sprawled on the ground a short distance away. He is covered in black ash and smoke. He is coughing up a lung. But he is alive. He survived the crash and the explosions and the fireballs because he is a survivor.

  He is a parasite.

  And this parasite slowly gets to its feet. “He is more valuable alive. We need him.”

  “Bullshit. We don’t need him. No one needs him. It’s over. The virus has spread around the world. We’re all dead. You. Me. Him. We’re all dead. Why shouldn’t I be the one who gets to kill him?”

  “Don’t. Please. He’s too valuable.”

  “No. No, he is not. He has no value. None whatsoever. You know what’s valuable now? Water. Food. Shelter. Guns. Ammunition. Those NBC suits the Evo Agents are wearing. Those things are valuable.”

  I point the gun at the man in the gas mask. “This guy. This… thing. He is not valuable.”

  The man in the gas mask nods his head slightly because I think he agrees with me.

  “Any last words?” I ask like a seasoned executioner.

  “Do what you feel is right,” he whispers. “Do what you must.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. Don’t you dare. This is not about what’s right. It’s about what you deserve. You deserve a bullet in your brain. You’ve condemned us to death. You condemned everyone to death. We can’t live down here, we can’t survive down here because you set the infected loose. You infected the Warden with a time release nano-swarm and now that swarm is also running loose. And outside? We can’t go outside because you just launched not one, but three goddamn nuclear warheads. Australia was already a wasteland. A zombie wasteland. And now you’ve turned it into a nuclear wasteland. I… I can’t even believe I’m saying those words. It’s a radioactive, zombiefied wasteland. You’ve won. You got what you wanted. You’ve backed us into a corner. You’ve taken away all our choices, all our options, all our hopes for survival. You’ve taken away hope. We are all dead. Do you hear me!? We’re all dead! We have nothing to gain and nothing to lose. So now I’m going to kill you. Because you deserve to die. You do not deserve life. You do not deserve to keep breathing. You do not deserve to see the messed up, rotten fruits of your labor. You do not deserve to see your sick, twisted dream come true.”

  “It is not a nuclear wasteland,” he whispers.

  He is calm.

  He is so calm.

  And I am not calm. “What?”

  I am raging.

  “Australia is not a nuclear wasteland,” he repeats. “The warheads were detonated in the upper-atmosphere. There will be minimal to zero nuclear fallout.”

  I shake my head. I don’t believe him. “You’re lying. You. Are. Lying.”

  I look at Doctor Hunter. I search his blackened and exhausted face for some hint, for some clue as to whether or not this psychopath is telling the truth.

  But Doctor Hunter is clueless.

  Don’t believe a word he says.

  He is a liar.

  “They were detonated in the upper stratosphere,” he continues. “Over forty miles. Straight up. The missiles travelled at over Mach four, over four times the speed of sound. It took the missiles less than one minute to reach this height.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why did you do it? What was the point?”

  “The pulse,” he says so quietly that I almost don’t hear him.

  “Pulse?” I say. “Speak up.”

  I crack him in the side of the head with the barrel of the gun.

  This act of violence surprises me. It shocks me more than it shocks the man in the gas mask.

  “Don’t do it,” Doctor Hunter pleads. “We need him.”

  I don’t care. I. Do. Not. Care.

  I’m telling myself I don’t care. I’m telling myself that we do not need him, that he does not deserve to live.

  I need to do this. I want to do this. I made a promise.

  I am about to pull the trigger. I am about to squeeze the trigger.

  I am about to kill the man in the gas mask. I am about to execute him because this is what he deserves and this is what I want to do.

  But I don’t get the chance.

  I am tackled to the ground. I am driven into the ground, into the concrete.

  By Daniel.

  The gun slides across the concrete
floor of the Vehicle Access Point, disappearing under a heavily armored Humvee.

  Daniel’s full weight is on top of me. I can’t move.

  “Close the blast doors!” Daniel orders one of his men.

  “But sir, there could be survivors,” one of his men replies.

  “No. There are no survivors. And we can’t risk it.”

  Daniel loosens his grip on me and I get to my hands and knees.

  I need the gun.

  I reach out for it.

  And as I reach out, I see my wrist, I see the white bandage turn red. I see my weeping gunshot wound.

  Blood drips from my forearm.

  A lot of blood.

  My vision narrows and I lose my hearing. The world becomes darker and darker.

  And as I pass out, I have a moment of clarity. I realize that this is the fourth time that I have tried to kill the man in the gas mask, this monster, this thing. And for the fourth time, I have failed.

  Chapter 1

  Somewhere in a dark and sinister corner of my mind, I am aware, I am hyper aware of the fact that for the fourth time I have failed.

  I shot the man in the gas mask with a shotgun, a hand held cannon. I stabbed him with the world’s largest hunting knife in the morgue of the research labs.

  I almost killed him with that same knife in the control room.

  And I should’ve executed him. I had the chance to execute him. I should’ve put a bullet in his brain.

  I have failed.

  All.

  Four.

  Times.

  And in this dark corner of my mind I am disappointed with myself.

  Not angry, just disappointed.

  I wake suddenly and the disappointment I feel gives way once again to rage. I am still raging. My heart is beating faster, louder.

  I am sitting in a large and comfortable chair. Something is digging into my wrist. I feel pressure. A pin-prick. Pulling. Tugging.

  I open my eyes. I am in the driver’s seat of a military Humvee. My left wrist is tied to the steering wheel with a plastic zip-tie.

  Someone has a hold of my right arm.

  Pain shoots up and down this limb like a bolt of lightning.

  Daniel is stitching up my bullet wound in my forearm.

  My bullet wound.

  This is the reality of my situation. And the only thing that surprises me is that I haven’t been shot sooner.