Read Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) for Free Online Page A

life.
    For food.
    For water.
    For medicine.
    Not that I care about risking my life. Not for Kim.
    It’s a worthwhile cause. As worthwhile as any other.
    She was my friend. We had been through hell together. Drifted off into
the Pacific Ocean together. And I still feel guilty about leaving her behind in
that lonely New Zealand quarantine facility. I know it worked out for the best.
But I still feel like I abandoned her. I feel like I could’ve done more.
    So I’m going to make it up to her.
    I’m going to get her goddamn meds and she’s going to be fine and we’re
going to help each other get out of this prison.
    “I don’t care if it’s between a rock and a hard place,” I say to George.
“Just show me where the sick bay is.”
    George is still sitting behind the computer, tapping away on the
keyboard. “I’m trying. I need a minute.”
    “I don’t know if we have that long.”
    My watch starts beeping, reminding me that time is running out. And Kim
coughs. And George is tapping on the keyboard. And my heart thumps in my chest.
And my watch beeps.
    We don’t have time to waste.
    The tapping of the keyboard stops.
    “Oh no,” George whispers.
    “What is it?”
    “He’s here. What is he doing here?”
    “Who the hell are you talking about?”
    George points at the computer screen. “Look.”
    I move behind the desk to see what he is pointing at.
    It is the man in the gas mask.
    The computer screen is showing security camera footage of the corridors,
and a few of the interrogation rooms, and a few of the holding cells. George
presses a few keys and types in a few commands. He brings the view of the
corridor full screen.
    The man in the gas mask is walking down the corridor. He drags and scrapes
a machete along the walls of the corridor and along the doors of the holding
cells.
    “Is he outside?” I ask.
    George nods.
    “Right outside?”
    “Yes.”
    The man in the gas mask steps to the door. I see his shadow underneath
the door frame. I look back at the CCTV footage. He is just standing there. He
is just outside. Right outside.
    Looking at the door. Looking through the door.
    “Can he get in here?” I ask.
    “No. It’s locked. Dead locked. Bolted. He can’t get in.”
    The man in the gas mask swings his machete and it sticks into the wooden
door.
    The noise makes me flinch and I take a very large step back, moving
away, moving towards the back of the room.
    The man in the gas mask then starts carving something into the door.
    Another message.
    He moves back.
    He looks up at the security camera and he points down the corridor.
    “What’s he doing?” I ask. “What is he pointing at?”
    “I don’t know,” George answers. “I think he’s pointing at the holding
cells.”
    He continues carving a message into the door frame.
    The noise is incredibly loud and unnerving. The scratching of metal on
wood. Fingernails on a chalkboard. It’s like the noise is being amplified into
the small space of the office. The noise fills the room.
    George stands up, knocking his chair over. “I’ll do it! I swear. I just
need time!”
    The man in the gas mask finishes up his message. He then disappears back
down the corridor and moves out of sight. Like a ghost. But he’s not a ghost.
He is real. He is a real goddamn psychopath.
    He is torturing me. And us. He is breaking us down mentally and
emotionally.
    Waiting for us to crack.
    Why? What the hell for?
    Who the hell is this guy?
    George picks up his chair and sits back down. He buries his head in his
hands. For a second, I think he is going to break down right then and there and
start crying. But he doesn’t. He keeps it together.
    He begins typing again, controlling the security camera in the corridor.
He zooms in on the door. Zooms in on the message that the man in the gas mask
carved with his machete.
    The message reads:

 
    I dreamt of
freedom,
    and about a world on fire.
    The old Empires
fall.

 
    “He’s crazy,” I say. “Are you sure he