They were in denial about this fact.

One of the soldiers wanted to kill Jack and myself. It was obvious he had lost his mind.

So like I said, when we found the Humvee, we couldn"t believe our luck. We a.s.sumed it had been abandoned by the military. We had no idea there were soldiers still alive. They had stayed hidden. Used all their survival training to avoid the infected. These guys were Force Recon Marines. They were hard b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Highly trained. Highly skilled.

"Let"s go get it," I said. "No point in waiting around any longer."

The Humvee was parked near a school. We were about to jump in the Humvee and drive off when I saw something move past the gla.s.s entry doors of the school.

It was a child.

Five or six years old.

"Jack, did you see that?"

"See what?"

Jack had his face pressed up against the driver"s side window of the Humvee. He was looking to see if the keys were in the ignition.

"Over there," I said, pointing at the entrance. "The school."

Jack looked up. "What is it?"

And before I could answer the child appeared again. This time he had a chair in his hands.

He swung the chair and smashed the door.

"Whoa," Jack said. "Strong kid."

"I can"t believe he"s alive. How? How has he survived?"

I raised my rifle and walked towards the school.

"Hey kid!"

The kid looked up and saw me. And then sprinted off down the street. Maybe I shouldn"t have raised my rifle.

I ran after him.

"Kenji, no!" Jack shouted. "We need to stick together!"

Jack was right but I needed to ask this boy how he had survived. I don"t know why I needed to know this. He had probably hid inside the school and survived off the school cafeteria"s food.

But I needed to ask him. I had to make sure. I had to speak to him.

The boy was fast. He was scared. He scrambled up and over a car. He climbed on top of another one. A van. He turned and looked at me. He was definitely scared. You could see it in his eyes.

A m.u.f.fled gunshot erupted in the otherwise quiet street.

The boy fell backwards, off the roof of the van. He had been shot. He was dead.

I turned and dropped to my knee. I raised my rifle. Did Jack shoot the kid? Was there a sniper in the area?

If there was, I was probably next.

I kept moving. I dived under the nearest car. "Jack! Get down!"

I looked back towards the school, where the shot had come from. Jack had dived under the Humvee.

It was hard to see in the dust. Hard to hear over the wind.

Who shot the boy?

Where were they hiding?

Why did they shoot?

I looked for Jack again. I needed to tell him to stay down. If he moved he was dead. I looked under the Humvee. I needed to make sure he wasn"t going to do anything stupid.

But Jack was no longer there. He was standing right next to the Humvee. He had his hands in the air. His rifle was on the ground.

A soldier stood in front of him. His gun, an M40 sniper rifle was pointed right at Jack"s head.

Survivors I stood up from under the car. I pointed my rifle directly at the soldier. "Hey! Don"t even think about it. Drop your weapon!"

The soldier turned slowly and looked at me. He lowered his rifle.

I took a tentative step forward. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing? Why did you shoot that kid?"

He held his rifle in his left hand and raised his right to let me know he wasn"t a threat. He slowly walked towards me. "Why the h.e.l.l do you think I shot him?"

He held my gaze as he walked towards the body of the child. He fired a shot at point blank range into the forehead. The sniper rifle had a suppressor fixed to the barrel but the noise of the gunshot was still pretty loud.

"Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been bitten," he said. "He had minutes. Maybe less."

The world, the street, began to spin around in my head. My mind was swirling with the red dust. Jack was speechless. He still had his hands in the air.

"You better come inside," the soldier said. "Noise is bad."

"Who are you?" I asked "What"s your name?"

"Introductions come later. When we"re inside. Not safe on the streets."

Broken We followed the soldier into the school. He led us down a set of stairs into a storage bas.e.m.e.nt. He locked the door behind us and tied a chain around the handle. He told us to be quiet.

"The only way to stay alive in this messed up city is to be quiet," he said. "Do you understand me? You two punks give away our position one more time and I will cut you and leave you for the monsters."

I was about to argue with him and say that we didn"t give away anyone"s position but then I thought better of it.

And then the soldier completely disregarded his own advice.

"Hey Sarge!" the soldier yelled.

This was our first warning that this guy wasn"t completely sane. We should"ve turned around right then and there. We should"ve run away as fast as possible. But we didn"t. I guess we really were in a state of shock.

"Sarge! You won"t believe it, man. I found a couple of survivors!"

What the h.e.l.l happened to being quiet? What happened to not giving away our position?

"Should you be yelling like that?" I asked.

Jack looked at me; he was nodding his head back towards the doorway. He wanted to get the h.e.l.l out.

Looking back, he was right. We should"ve got the h.e.l.l out of there. But I needed to ask these guys a few questions. What were they doing here? What were their orders? Did they know anything about the military"s plans? Did they know anything about the dust storm? Could they organize a rescue for Maria?

We had walked to the opposite side of the storage room. The room was filled with desks and chairs and gym mats and other a.s.sorted sports equipment. There were windows located high up on the walls that allowed for some light, but because of the dust storm it was still fairly dark.

Sitting on the concrete ground, leaning against a stack of gym mats was another soldier.

"Sarge? What the h.e.l.l, man? What are you doing?"

The soldier kicked the Sergeant in the leg, waking him up.

The Sergeant raised his head slowly. "What is it?" he whispered.

"You"re not gonna believe this," he said as he pointed his rifle at Jack and I. "I found a couple of survivors. Not infected or nothing." He then looked at us. "You guys aren"t sick are you?"

"No, sir," Jack said.

The Sergeant stood up slowly. He was leaning against the stack of gym mats for support. He appeared to be weak and lethargic. I should"ve known he was infected. But it was dark down in that bas.e.m.e.nt. And I was still in a state of shock.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked them.

"Recon a.s.signment," the Sergeant answered.

"Recon? What do you mean? The rest of the military has fallen back. You guys are alone in here."

The Sergeant still had his head lowered. "That"s the way we like it. That"s how we"ve always operated."

"Yeah, man," the other soldier said. "Don"t you know nothing about Force Recon? You are a soldier, right? You didn"t just steal that uniform did ya?"

"No. I just..."

The soldier waved me off. "Whatever man. Hey Sarge, you owe me a c.o.ke. You said there was no survivors left. You said everyone was dead. You owe me."

The soldier was still talking extremely loud. And to make matters worse his voice was bouncing off the walls of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Can you lower your voice, please?" Jack said.

"Or what? What are you gonna do?"

"Nothing. I just think that..."

"You think I"m gonna give away our position? You think I"m that stupid."

"No, I didn"t say that."

The soldier drew his sidearm and fired it directly at Jack in one swift motion. My heart skipped a beat. There was no time to react. No time.

Jack instinctively ducked. The bullet missed him and smashed into the concrete wall of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

I raised my rifle. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing?"

The solider held his hand up. "Relax, man. I missed on purpose. It was just a warning shot."

"You"ve got to be kidding."

Jack was patting himself down. He couldn"t believe what had just happened. He couldn"t believe he wasn"t hurt.

"Stand down," the Sergeant said to his soldier.

"Sarge, come on man. It"s cool. I found survivors. It"s gonna be OK."

I kept my rifle pointed directly at the soldier"s head.

"Stand down," the Sergeant repeated. "You need to be quiet. This place will be crawling with sick people soon."

"Nah Sarge, I wouldn"t do that. I wouldn"t put us in danger. I"m better than that. I"m a G.o.dd.a.m.n Force Recon Marine. Semper Fi. I will not let you down, sir."

The Sergeant seemed to regain some composure then. He spat saliva on to the ground. Although I suppose it could"ve been blood. It was too dark to see clearly. He took a few deep breaths. He stood up straight.

Jack had finally come to terms with the fact that someone had a fired a gun at him. He was now standing further back, he was holding on to his rifle. He was holding on tight.

I was getting this weird vibe, like we were about to get into a shoot out. Everything was sort of happening in slow motion. This guy was proving to be unpredictable and dangerous.

We should not have gone down into that bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Where did you guys come from?" the Sergeant asked.

"We"ve been hiding for the past couple of weeks," I said. "We"ve been keeping low."

"Has it been that long?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"We were inserted into the city with a large force. We got separated. We were ordered to dig in. Engage any hostiles. Enforce the containment protocol and wait for an extraction."

"Yeah man," the soldier said. "We must"ve killed at least a thousand of those sick psychopaths. And maybe a couple hundred civilians. But you know, the civvies were probably infected as well, right?"