The Lost Journal (A Secret Apocalypse Story) by James Harden Read Free Book Online Page A

seconds. It’s three in the morning. But I can’t sleep.
    Whenever I close my eyes, I see this woman. I see her blood soaked blonde hair.
    She was young. Attractive. She was dying.
    I can hear her whispering to me. Like her head is right next to me, resting on my pillow, like she is whispering into my ear.
    Please.
    Kill me.
    And just as I’m about to fall asleep, I hear the gunshot.
    January 22nd – Testing
    Unfortunately the attack at the Doctor’s surgery was not an isolated incident. There had been other reports of violence throughout Woomera. The virus was beginning to spread through the town as well as the immigration center. It was starting to get out of control. And after everything I saw today, I’ve got a bad feeling that this situation is about to get a whole lot worse.
    We were woken up an hour early. Not that I minded. I was still wide awake. I knew I was probably going to crash hard later on in the day but I was hoping adrenalin would help me get through the patrol. Some strong coffee wouldn’t hurt either.
    The briefing was quick. But it put all of us on edge.
    Today, everyone, all the civilians were to be tested. The whole town. All 1,348 people. The township of Woomera was being put under an ‘unofficial’ quarantine. This basically meant they weren’t going to announce this quarantine to the media.
    At least, not yet.
    We were ordered to wear flak jackets, body armor and gloves during the testing process.
    The troops let out a collective grown. No one wanted to wear body armor. Let alone flak jackets and gloves. Not in this heat. Especially when we weren’t even being shot at by enemy forces.
    The townspeople were to be gathered up and herded through testing gates. Like cattle, I thought.
    The testing gates measured core body temperature.
    Apparently a low temperature reading was bad. If a person had a lowered core body temperature, the alarm on the testing gate would flash red.
    If this happened the person was to be escorted away to an isolated wing of the local hospital for more testing.
    This was the quickest way to identify any possible infected or carriers of the virus.
    They also had sniffer dog teams patrolling the lines for some reason. They were mean looking German Shepherds. I don’t know what they were trained to smell or detect or whatever. But every person the dogs singled out had a lowered core body temp. Every single one of those people were taken away at gun point.
    Testing was conducted in the main street, out the front of the small town hall. Drake, Franco and I were situated on the rooftop of the town’s one and only bank. We had a bird’s eye view of everything.
    Throughout the day most of the people were pretty cooperative. Even when the light flashed red and they were taken away at gun point, most people remained calm.
    There were a few incidents, a few guys freaked out when the light flashed red. Initially they refused to go, forcing the soldiers on the ground level to get rough. But when they realized there was no point in fighting back they eventually calmed down and cooperated.
    So yeah, for the most part everything was going smoothly.
    We were nearly done. We had managed to process everyone in a couple of hours. We only had about a hundred people left.
    Franco, Drake and I were getting a bit bored with our supervision duty. At that point I was a little jealous that Gordon was still in the sweet air-conditioned comfort of the hospital. It was well over a hundred degrees today. And up on the roof of the bank it felt a lot hotter.
    We had been scanning the lines all morning, making sure everyone remained calm during the testing process.
    Like I said, for the most part people had been well behaved.
    Until this one guy had to go and ruin everything. This one act of stupidity has put the whole town in a state of panic. Thanks to this guy, the whole town is on the verge of rioting.
    He was one of the last to line up. We were so close to finishing up for the day.
    Drake saw