The Lost Journal Part 27

I lit another flare and threw it.

The sc.r.a.ping noise was steady and rhythmic.

"All clear," Jack said. "Let's go."

By this stage all the other flares had died down. So I lit the last one and threw it deeper into the tunnel. It landed at the foot of a soldier. His rifle was gripped in his right hand. He was dragging the weapon along the road. He was infected. His mouth was open. He was drooling blood.

I raised my own rifle and shot him in the head. There was no time to think this through. It was just a reflex. The noise of the gunshot echoed and bounced off the walls of the tunnel.

This was followed by silence. A second, maybe more.

The gunshot was answered by the infected. Moaning and screaming in the distance. There were more of them. Lots more.

"Get in the car!" Jack shouted. "Let's go!"

We jumped in the car. I hadn't even closed my door before Jack sped off.

The first one we saw was standing off to the side of the road, facing the wall. We didn't see it. Not until we were so close we could've reached out and touched it. It turned quickly, the headlights reflecting off its lifeless eyes. Turning them red, like a demon. It lunged for the car, hitting the side of the hood. It bounced off, smas.h.i.+ng one of the headlights. The noise woke us up, scared the h.e.l.l out of us. We suddenly realized the tunnel wasn't such a good idea.

"Should we turn around?" Maria said.

Jack slowed down, applying pressure to the brakes. "Yeah maybe we should," he said. "I mean, if there's one there's got to be more."

Both Jack and I were looking out the rear window to see if the infected man we just hit was chasing us.

I guess Jack should've been watching the road.

"Look out!" Maria shouted.

We ran over another one. Jack swerved at the last second but still hit it front on. The car bounced up and down as we ran over it. The other head light smashed partially. Even less light. Jack slammed on the breaks.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "Keep driving."

"I can't see!" Jack replied.

"We need more light," Maria said. "There's got to be more lights on this thing. It's a cop car. Don't they come equipped with spotlights or something?"

Jack quickly examined the control panel in the middle of the dashboard console. He flicked a few switches. All of a sudden he hit the switch for the spotlight.

And the sirens.

Suddenly the tunnel was light up like Christmas and New Year's Eve. Blue and red flas.h.i.+ng lights bounced off the walls of the tunnel. The spotlight mixed in, turning everything brighter.

But then we could see.

Hundreds of infected people lined the road. Watching us.

"Go!" I shouted.

Jack practically punched his foot through the accelerator. The huge V8 engine roared and we were all thrown back in our seats. I looked out the rear window again.

They were chasing. Hundreds. Maybe more. I glanced at the speedometer. We were travelling along at about sixty miles per hour. More infected up ahead. The road was becoming more and more congested.

"Oh no," I whispered under my breath.

Jack gripped the steering wheel tight, he was breathing hard. "Oh s.h.i.+t. What do we do? What do we do?"

"Just go," I answered "Floor it."

"Are you crazy?"

"We can't turn back now. We'll get stuck. They'll swarm, overwhelm us. Our only choice is to keep going."

We were cras.h.i.+ng into more and more now. Infected corpses b.u.mped off the bull bar, and the hood of the cop car. We started bouncing up and down as we ran over them.

"Go," I repeated. "As fast as you can."

Jack pressed down on the accelerator.

It was a crash derby.

At that moment I remembered another quote my father used to say all the time.

"If you are going through h.e.l.l. Keep going."

It was wall to wall with infected people. Dead people. Corpses. The living dead. Zombies. Whatever you want to call them.

The Cross City Tunnel was wall to wall with them.

Every now and then we thought the number of infected was going to clear out. But it never did.

The windows must've been reinforced because no matter how many bodies we smashed into they never broke. They didn't even shatter. At one point there were about a dozen infected on the hood of the car. We couldn't see. Jack had to slam the brakes on so they went flying off. He then accelerated again, driving over them. We bounced up and down. I nearly hit my head on the roof of the car. Each time we hit one there was a loud thump. At one point there were so many thumps it was like we were getting pelted with rocks or giant boulders or something. But Jack kept going and kept us steady. His hands were gripped firmly on the steering wheel, his knuckles were white. His foot was pressed on the accelerator, a grim look of determination on his face.

Up ahead we could see the light of the exit.

We were almost there.

Going through h.e.l.l. Keep going.

The more sunlight, the less infected there were.

Maybe they preferred the dark.

I don't know.

But Jack was able to increase our speed.

Sixty miles per hour.

Seventy.

Eighty.

We were able to put some distance between us and the chasing horde. We let out a cheer and breathed a sigh of relief as we finally drove out of the tunnel. But we weren't in the clear yet. We needed a place to hide. And we needed to find a place real quick before all those infected in the tunnel found us.

Sydney Cricket Ground "Where do we go now?" Maria asked.

"We have to hide," I said. "Somewhere that's safe. Somewhere we can barricade and reinforce."

We sped along the main roadway. Up ahead we could see a couple of sports stadiums right next to each other.

"There!" Jack shouted. "We can hide in one of the stadiums."

"Which one?" I asked.

"Does it matter?" Maria said. "Just pick one!"

Jack turned off the main roadway and drove right up to the entrance of the nearest stadium.

"The SCG," Jack said. "Should be empty."

We parked the car out the front of the entrance. We didn't bother shutting the doors or taking the keys out of the ignition. We just got out and left it and headed into the stadium.

The sports stadium is called the SCG - short for Sydney Cricket Ground.

It had potential. The problem was, the potential worked both ways. It was potentially a refuge and a fortress. But it was also potentially a trap. A nightmare. We knew all the dangers. We knew.

It might not be safe.

It might not be secure.

It could be crawling with infected.

It could be a death trap.

But we had to try. We had no other options. We had backed ourselves into a corner. We had left our sanctuary high above the ruins of Sydney and now we were on the mean streets.

We were surrounded.

We were on the run.

We had to fortify our position immediately. And a sports stadium seemed like a good place to start. Lucky for us it was.

There was no time to rest. No time to breathe. Not yet. We were running on pure adrenalin. The job ahead of us was huge but there was no time to complain. We had to secure all the doors, entry points and exit points. We had to barricade them. If we didn't, we were leaving ourselves open to an attack. And if we let just one of the infected in here, it would be all over.

So we didn't complain. We just sucked it up, and got to work. We shut all the gates and roller doors and emergency exits.

The worst part was making sure the place was actually empty. But once we were satisfied we were alone, we found a room in one of the upper floors of the grand stand to hide in. It was a corporate area by the looks of things. We picked one of the rooms. I guess it was a corporate box. It had two doors, one that led into the corridor, the other led into some outside seats. I locked these doors and placed some tables and chairs up against them.

After we had locked ourselves in the corporate box we sort of just stood around trying to catch our breath.

"We can't keep this up," Maria said. "We can't. We won't make it."

Maria was right. We couldn't keep running.

It was my call to go down to the lower levels. It was my call to go into the tunnel. I should've known it was a deathtrap. I told myself to keep it together. Jack and Maria need you.

Especially Maria.

She's too valuable.

I made the right call. We did what we had to do.

I tell myself we are still alive.

I'm shaking and trembling as I write all this down, because to be honest, I'm grateful to be alive. I'm Lucky. We all are.

I should be forcing myself to get a few hours of sleep but I can't.

I can sleep when I'm dead. At this rate, I won't have to wait long.

Rest and Recover We did nothing but sleep, for like two days straight. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We worked ourselves to exhaustion. We had been running for our lives for over a week. Even when we made it to the relative safety of the SCG we didn't stop. There was no time. We had to barricade and lock ourselves inside. We went right around the entire stadium and locked up each and every entry point and exit point. That kind of work rate and adrenalin fuelled running tends to take a toll on a person.

We didn't even bother keeping watch at night when we slept. We were too tired. We just trusted that our efforts to fortify the stadium were sufficient. The first night here I put some tables and chairs up against the doors of the room we were hiding in. I slept against the temporary barricade so I would feel anything trying to open it or break through. Luckily, it seemed to have been adequate.

After about a week of resting and sleeping we decided to do another pa.s.s of stadium. We just wanted to be sure that we hadn't missed anything. We decided to reinforce and barricade the main emergency tunnels into the stadium. These tunnels were used so ambulances could gain access to the field in case of an emergency and so the groundskeepers could drive maintenance equipment on to the field. They were gated on the outside, but they were completely open on the inside as they opened on to the field.

To be on the safe side, we decided to barricade the tunnels.

We ended up parking a couple of pitch rollers, lawn mowers, spare seats and tables right into the mouth of the emergency tunnels. We just crammed them all in together. Finally, we were satisfied nothing was getting in here. The stadium really was a fortress. And once we were convinced we were as safe as we could be we continued to rest and recover. We found some food and water in kitchen areas of the corporate levels so we could afford to take it easy.

It was almost as good as the Sydney Tower. It was safe, it was secure. The only downside is that we didn't have the views that the tower afforded us. But again, as nice as this place was we knew we couldn't stay here forever. We needed to make a plan. One that didn't involve going underground or getting trapped or running for our lives.

"So what do we do?" I asked out loud.

We were lazing around inside our luxurious corporate box. Jack and Maria were sitting against the wall, drifting in and out of sleep.

"Huh?"

"What do we do now?" I repeated. "Do we go out west? Do we wait for a rescue? Maybe we could make a sign on the roof of the stadium or on the field or something?"

"A sign?" Maria asked, still half asleep.

"Yeah, you know, so if any choppers are flying over they can see it."

"I like that," Jack said. "What can we use to make the sign?"

"Don't know."