Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) by James Harden Page A

actually
takes a slight step forward. Not even a step. She tenses up and leans forward,
ready to pounce.
    I hold her back.
We would never reach him in time.
    George turns
around and waves us into the nearest holding cell. “Get inside. Face the wall.
On your knees.”
    And I’m
thinking, maybe we should’ve charged at him. Maybe we should’ve gone out with a
fight.
    I have the
feeling this room is about to become our tomb.
    “He’s not coming
back,” I say. “You can’t trust him. You can’t!”
    “He is coming
for me. I don’t have much time.”
    His
watch. The countdown.
    When George
first showed us his watch he had less than ten minutes.
    How long does he
have now?
    Minutes.
Seconds.
    When the watch,
when the countdown reaches zero, the nano-virus will be released. It will be
activated.
    It
will eat you from the inside. It will kill you. There is no stopping it.
    “He is not
coming back,” Kim says. “You have to realize that.”
    George points
the gun at Kim. “Shut up. No more talking.”
    I think about
yelling out. But I don’t.
    “You think the
infected will hear us?” I ask. “Are you really worried about them right now?
You’ve only got a couple of minutes. And then you’re dead. I’ve got just over
two days and then I’m dead as well. I’ve come to terms with this. I have
accepted my fate.”
    I tell him I have
accepted my fate. But I am lying.
    Jack says, “What
the hell are you talking about?”
    But there is no
time to explain to Jack.
    “I’ll be long
gone by the time the infected get here,” George says. “And he will know what to
do. He will save me. He has bought my
trust. And I trust him.”
    “Where the hell
are you going to go?” I ask.
    “We’re getting
out. He told me that we will be the first ones of a new society, a new world. A
stronger, better world. He told me that we are going to watch it burn. Burn the
old Empires. Start over.”
    These are the
words, the teachings, the ramblings of the man in the gas mask.
    The pressure has
destroyed George’s ability to think rationally. He is so far gone. It is
terrifying to watch and terrifying to think that I might turn into something like
this in just a couple of days’ time.
    “Please,” Kim
says. “You can’t just kill us like this. It’s wrong. It’s so goddamn wrong.”
    “We can’t take
you,” George says. “More mouths to feed. Everything is limited. Everything. We
can’t take you.”
    “You are not
special,” I say. “You are not the chosen one.”
    I show him my
watch again. “See? I am screwed as well. I am a dead man walking. Dead girl
walking.”
    He shakes his
head and I get the feeling that maybe he knows that he is screwed. Somewhere
deep down, he knows. But he can’t admit it. And he’s angry. He’s angry and mad
because he has been taken advantage of and manipulated and tortured and he has
been sentenced to death.
    His freedom has
been taken away and he is no longer in control of anything.
    Not this prison.
    Not his life.
    “No more
talking,” he says. “It is time to die.”
    And as soon as
he says time to die , his watch beeps.
    And beeps.
    And continues to
beep.
    It beeps
continuously and incessantly and the infected horde that is all the way down
the other end of the dark corridor has definitely heard this.
    And George’s
eyes go wide.
    His time is up.
    Suddenly, little
cuts begin to appear on George’s skin. His face. His neck.
    And his nose
bleeds.
    And his ears.
And his eyes.
    The time release
nano-virus has been activated.
    And he begins to
choke and cough up blood. And more and more cuts appear on his skin and his
face and blood begins to stain his white shirt.
    He is being
eaten by a nano-swarm from the inside.
    “No,” he
whispers as he looks at the blood dripping from his hands. “God, no.”
    He is still
speaking and choking and gurgling. He hasn’t screamed in pain because maybe he
can’t feel it. Maybe each cut is so tiny, so microscopic and so precise that