I crawled back inside and closed the door to the balcony as quietly as possible.

I made it back to the office we had been sleeping in. Jack was awake. He knew something was wrong.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We gotta go. We have to get off the streets. Get to high ground. Now. They"re back. It"s not safe here."

Time to Go Maria had woken. "Why? What happened? What"s going on?"

They could both tell by the terrified look on my face why we had to leave. They could read me like a book. I would"ve made a terrible poker player.

"I can"t be sure, but it looks like they"re coming back into the city."

"What do you mean, coming back?"

"Like I said before, I think they would"ve chased the military as the fell back to the coast. Or maybe even the airport."

"And they"ve stopped chasing?" Maria asked.

I nodded.

"So they"re all dead? The military?"

"Maybe. I don"t know. What I do know is that the infected are slowly making their way back into the city. They"re basically following the main roadways."

"Why would they come back?" Maria asked. "I mean, aren"t they brain dead?"

"Maybe they know we"re here," Jack whispered.

"What? How would they know?"

"Maybe they can smell us? Maybe they can hear us? I don"t know."

"That"s stupid. They can"t hear us. You would need super human hearing to be able to hear us. They can"t see us. We"re hidden."

"Look, who knows what this virus is capable of?" Jack said. "The weirdo doctor said it was designed to find life. Well guess what? We"re it. We"re alive. We"re breathing. They"re coming for us."

Jack was right. I wish to G.o.d that he wasn"t but he was.

We couldn"t explain it. But those d.a.m.n infected, mindless, zombies were shuffling their way back into the city.

And they were coming for us.

High Ground "So what the h.e.l.l do we do?" Maria asked "Where do we go? How do we get there? I don"t really feel like walking around on the streets."

"High ground," I answered. "We have to get to high ground. We"ll be safe up there. Plus we"ll be able to see what"s going on in the rest of the city."

"A skysc.r.a.per." Maria said.

"Yeah. The bigger the better."

"The Sydney Center Point Tower," Jack said. "It"s the tallest building in Sydney. It"ll have panoramic views of the whole city."

"What about what happened at casino?" Maria said. "We were trapped. I don"t want to be trapped again."

"That was a freak incident," I said trying to convince myself more than anyone.

But what were the alternatives? Fly out of the city. Swim out? Walk out? We couldn"t do any of those things. Not now. So the next best thing and really the only thing to do was to get to high ground.

"We can"t go back out into the streets," Maria said. "It"s a mess. It"s too dangerous. There was so many of them yesterday. And more today."

"Well, what are our options?" I asked.

"We could go underground," Jack suggested. "There"s a train station not far from here. We could go down there. It"ll lead us to the tower."

Maria shook her head. "You really want to go underground? Where it"s dark? Completely dark?"

"It couldn"t be any worse than the streets."

"Yeah it could. It could be a lot worse."

Jack thought it over for a minute. "What about the monorail track? It"s about twenty, thirty feet above the road. We could walk along the track, follow it to Center Point. The infected won"t be able to reach us. And it will lead us right to the tower."

Maria smiled. "Yeah. Much better than the dark underground train station."

"That could work," I said. "Where"s the nearest monorail station."

"Down this main road," Jack answered. "If we go now, we can make it."

"We should exit out towards the rear of the Town Hall," I said. "That way the building will hide us from the horde."

We gathered a few bottles of water from the bar downstairs, and then left the safety of the Town Hall. We headed for the nearest monorail station about a block away. We used one of the emergency exits on the side of the Town Hall building and crept as quietly as possible through the abandoned cars in the surrounding streets, using them as cover We had come to another main intersection. I motioned for Jack and Maria to get behind me.

"Which way?" I asked.

Jack pointed to the right.

I moved over to the wall of the building. I flattened myself against it and peeked around the corner.

I held my breath. My heart began thumping in my chest.

They were there.

It looked like all of them. Every single last person of the city of Sydney. I knew it wasn"t, but there was so d.a.m.n many of them. I ducked quickly back behind the wall and motioned for Jack and Maria to move. We would have to find another way.

We crawled back the way we had come and crouched in the doorway of an apartment building.

"We can"t go that way," I whispered. "There"s way too many of them. We need to get out of here. If they come around that corner we"re done for."

Jack pointed over his shoulder. "If we go back and go around the block we can still get there."

"OK, let"s go," I said. "Quietly."

We were about to go. We nearly didn"t see it.

One, lone infected man walked across the intersection. We froze.

It was just one at first. But then more and more followed him until the whole horde was moving across the intersection. We all pressed ourselves into the doorway of the apartment building, holding our breath, looking at each other as if to say "what the h.e.l.l do we do now?"

The infected hadn"t seen us yet. But it would only take one. And if one saw us, the rest would follow.

I gripped my rifle and flicked the safety off. I placed my index finger on the trigger. I knew we didn"t have nearly enough ammo to deal with them. But I was determined to put up a fight if they charged us.

Jack motioned with his head in the direction of the monorail station. "It"s just around the corner," he whispered. "It"s close. About fifty feet away. Two flights of stairs lead up the station."

Maybe there was a gate up there, I thought. Maybe we could run for it. Get up the stairs, barricade the gate. Keep running and follow the track. I wondered if they would be able to climb up to us from the ground. G.o.d, I hoped they couldn"t climb.

In the end we had to wait. It was too dangerous to try anything else. We waited for them to pa.s.s. The whole horde. It felt like I held my breath the entire time. We were completely at their mercy at that point. But we didn"t dare move. If we moved they would see us. And we sure as h.e.l.l couldn"t shoot them all. So we had to wait. We pressed ourselves into the doorway of the apartment building and we waited.

We kept perfectly still.

An hour pa.s.sed. Maybe more. At one point the horde was so thick I couldn"t see through the crowd. But it eventually began to thin out.

Once we were sure they had all moved on, we made a run for the mono-rail station. I stopped at the bottom of the stairwell that led up to the station. I had to make sure we hadn"t been seen. I waved Jack and Maria up the stairs. They took off, taking three steps at a time.

I waited. I had to be sure. I had my rifle up to my shoulder, finger on the trigger, barrel pointed at the intersection.

Nothing.

Jack was at the top of the stair case, urging me forward. "Come on, hurry!" he whispered.

I lowered my rifle and followed them up to the monorail station.

Mono means one. And rail means rail.

I love that Simpson"s episode. The one with the monorail. I had the song stuck in my head. I know, I know. I should"ve been focused but I couldn"t help it.

We had to move inside the building to actually get to the monorail station. That was pretty d.a.m.n terrifying, especially since the inside of the building was dark, almost pitch black. We moved inside the building and we had to wait a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark. I had the torch on my rifle, but I didn"t want to use it just in case I attracted any of the infected. So we waited until our eyes adjusted to the dark. And then we made our move. We climbed two flights of stairs to get to the level where the monorail station was. From there we climbed on to the track.

It was kind of weird walking along the track, above the streets. It was like we were giants or something. It was a whole different perspective to view the city from.

The monorail track was about twenty to thirty feet above the road. It was good because we were above the reach of the infected that were running around on the streets. The downside was that as we walked along the track we were out in the open. We were completely exposed. So if any of the infected bothered to look up, they would see us clearly. Another thing, the track was still wet from the thunderstorm. So we had to walk really, really slowly, paying careful attention to each step we took.

Jack was leading the way. He paused and held his hand up, motioning for us to stop.

"What is it?" I asked as I looked around. I really did not want to hang around on the wet, slippery monorail track any longer than was absolutely necessary.

"The track disappears into another building," Jack answered.

"What?"

"The monorail track. It goes into the building. The station is probably inside."

I looked over Jack"s shoulder and saw that the monorail track cut into the building and then re-emerged on the other side.

"I think you should take the lead," Jack said. "You know, just in case."

"Good idea. Is this the building that connects to the Sydney Tower?"

"Yeah."

We shimmied pa.s.sed each other, careful not to fall off the track. Falling off the track, at a height of about twenty feet wouldn"t kill you, but you"d probably break an ankle or a leg. And in an environment like this a broken leg was a death sentence.

I finally eased myself to the front of our little group.

I had my rifle at the ready. I tried to look inside where the track disappeared into the building but it was too dark. I really wish I had some night vision goggles. Wish I had a lot of things.

I turned to Jack and Maria who were both anxiously looking around, making sure we weren"t being followed, making sure nothing was down in the streets, looking up at us, watching us.

"All right," I said. "We gotta go in. There"s not much we can do but stay quiet and stay alert. If anything is inside, we"ll have to make our exit back along the monorail track. If anything chases us along here, we should be able pick them off pretty easily. One shot should be enough to knock them off the track. Not enough to kill them but enough to knock them off."

I inched forward, pausing at the entrance to the monorail station. There was a small platform that was maybe three of four carriages long. There was a small amount of dull light that illuminated the station and the immediate area. But beyond the station, further into the building it was completely dark.

I was about to wave Jack and Maria forward but then we heard the piercing sound of car tires screeching on bitumen. It was the sound of a car racing through the streets.

A Final Stand We all froze. We looked left and right, up and down the city street but there was nothing. The sound of the car"s engine and the tires bounced and echoed off the buildings, giving the impression that it was all around us.

"Lay flat!" I said, not knowing what else to do.

We moved over as close to the mono-rail station as we dared. And then we kind of awkwardly laid down on the track. We had to hug the track with our legs and arms so that we didn"t fall.

A second later, a car came skidding around the corner. And not just any car. It was a bright pink Rolls Royce. It was severely damaged. The cha.s.sis was dented and scratched. Some of the windows were shattered. The headlights were smashed in. The famous Rolls Royce grill had been completely destroyed. The luxury car came to an abrupt stop, almost directly below us. Both rear doors opened at the same time and two soldiers exited the car. They were both heavily armed. Each soldier had at least four rifles slung over his back.

Sniper rifles.

And automatic weapons.

One of the soldiers opened the trunk. The other stood guard, watching the street in the direction they had just come from. He had one of his sniper rifles at the ready.

Another soldier appeared from the driver"s side door. "Hold them here for as long as you can," he said. "Blackhawk is inbound for extraction. You"ve got ten minutes."

The two other soldiers nodded. No questions asked.

The soldier from the driver"s seat then held his index finger up to his ear. "Say again?"

The two heavily armed soldiers kept unloading equipment from the trunk. They appeared to be large suitcases.

The soldier up front said, "Ah guys, they said this area is too hot for a pick up. They can"t guarantee an extraction. They can"t give you an ETA. They want you to acknowledge this."