We followed Kenji up the stairs. The hospital was deserted. There were no nurses, no doctors, no soldiers, no killer robots wearing space suits. There were abandoned hospital beds left in the rooms and walkways. The nurse’s station was empty.

Kim kept saying how lucky we were. How we didn’t run into any resistance or any soldiers or anything else.

“Everyone must have bugged out,” Kenji said.

“That’s good for us, right?” Maria asked.

“Yes and no.”

We came out the main entrance of the hospital. It was early morning and the sky was grey. The crowd that was protesting the night before had completely cleared out. The ground was covered in rubbish, broken glass, and even some splatters of blood. The temporary fence that the military had erected had been pushed over. The razor wire was tangled up on the ground. I wondered where such a huge crowd of people could’ve disappeared to.

“Should we check around the back where we dropped off the Humvee?” Kim asked.

I didn’t really want to walk or run all the way around to the rear of the hospital just to see if the Humvee might still be there. I didn’t really want to spend a minute longer here at this hospital of death than was necessary.

“No, they would’ve taken it with them,” Kenji said.

In the emergency drop off zone we found another military Humvee that had been tipped over on its roof. Kenji got down on all fours and crawled inside the cabin. He emerged with an extra ammo clip and a walkie talkie.

“Where did everyone go?” I asked

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Where are the guards? Where did all the soldiers go? Where are all the people?”

“Quiet,” Kenji said as he turned on the walkie talkie and tuned it to a specific frequency.

We all gathered around, huddled together and listened. Kenji was fiddling with the knobs but all we could hear was static. In the distance we could hear helicopters, jets, and even gunshots. It sounded like a war was being waged not too far away.

Kenji finally found some voices. He zeroed in, clearing up the reception. All I could make out were a whole bunch of code words that sounded like gibberish. Thankfully, Kenji was able to translate.

“All military personnel fall back to green zone,” he said. “All other areas considered dangerous. Hostiles have been located north of Sydney and moving south along main roadways. Containment protocol initiated.”

Kenji switched off the radio and looked to the sky. “We need to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“You mean like, before the angry mob of people come back?” Jack said. “Or before the military realizes what just happened down there in the morgue?”

“I mean, we need to get out of North Sydney,” Kenji explained. “We need to get as far south as possible, at least over the bridge.”

“I am not walking all that way,” Maria said. “I’m going home. My house is only ten minutes away.”

“No. That’s not an option right now.”

“Why not? It’s secure. It has a gate.”

“Napalm,” Kenji said. “They’re going to use napalm.”