We backtracked down the river a fair way. We came to a point where the river bed branched off from the main stream. It twisted around and eventually it led into the mouth of a cave.

Ben had a shotgun. I think it was a shotgun. I can’t really remember. But I know it had a torch fixed to the barrel. The torch would be our only source of light once we moved deeper into the cave.

Ben led the way, head down, shoulders slumped. We should’ve realized right then and there that he was struggling, that he was dangerously and mortally wounded. But we were too caught up with the whole cheating of death thing. Like I said before, we couldn’t keep doing that. Plus we were dehydrated. We just weren’t thinking straight.

Also, I think we were all terrified of walking into a completely dark cave.

“Um, are you sure it’s safe in there?” I asked.

Ben didn’t turn around, he just kept walking. “This is the only way.”

“Looks like we don’t have a choice,” Kenji said. “Maria, stay close.”

“It should be empty,” Ben said. “This is the rabbit hole.”

“The what?” I asked.

“It’s the back door. It’s basically an emergency exit or entry to the outpost.”

“Smart move,” Kenji said. “Always have an exit strategy.”

“Bingo.”

We entered the cave, walking slowly and carefully. In less than a minute, the sunlight was gone. Ben’s torch was our only source of light. The cave narrowed and we had to walk in single file. In some sections the roof of the cave was so low, we had to walk hunched over. We even had to crawl through some sections.

When we could finally stand, Ben told us to rest up for a bit. It was then I noticed some Aboriginal cave paintings on the walls of the cave.

They seemed to be paintings of a giant snake.

“Wonder how old that is?” Maria asked.

“Thousands of years,” Ben answered. “The rainbow serpent is one of the oldest aboriginal dreamtime stories.”

“Oh yeah,” Maria said. “I think we learnt about that in kindergarten.”

“According to legend, before time had begun, the earth was flat and lifeless,” Ben said. “The rainbow serpent woke from its slumber, deep beneath the ground. When it woke, when it moved, it created the mountains, and the valleys, and the rivers. It gave life to the earth. It was a very powerful being.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“I told you, I grew up out here, worked out here. I’ve lived off this land for most of my life.”

“Why did you leave?”

Ben shook his head. “Fate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maria asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. The station I worked for closed down. So I moved to Melbourne. Met up with some bad people. Slipped into my old ways.”

“Old ways? What do you mean?”

“Drugs. Violence.”

I guess that should not have surprised us. He had to have learnt how to fight somewhere. And the way he killed those people. The way he butchered the priest. That’s a skill that is learnt. A gruesome skill. But a skill none the less.

“I was in the middle of a turf war when the virus first hit. The violence, the murders, they kept getting worse and worse. They kept escalating. We were on the verge of a bloodbath…”

He trailed off, unable to finish.

I wondered what he did. I wondered how many people he had killed. It was a frightening thought.

I had to keep reminding myself that Ben had saved our lives. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t even be here. We were so very nearly sacrificed and fed to… to what? I don’t even know.

A cloud? A demon? A monster?

Ben was the only one who had seen right through the ‘holier than thou’ persona of the priest. Saw his true colors. Saw how messed up he was.

A goddamn priest.

He was supposed to be stronger than us. He was supposed to be a rock for those people. Someone to trust. But he wasn’t any of those things. He was a psychopath. A mass murderer. And Ben saved us from him. Delivered us from evil.

I suddenly had a cold shiver.

Kenji grabbed my shoulder, made me jump.

“Hey, come on,” he said. “It’s time to keep moving.”

***

We eventually came to a door. It looked totally out of place. It was a huge metal thing set into the wall of the cave. It had a keypad built into it.

Ben shined the torch at the door, moved it around the frame. The light then settled at the foot of the entrance. There was a pool of dried blood.

“That’s not good,” Maria said.

Ben moved the torch back up to the keypad.

“Damn. I don’t suppose anyone knows the password?” Kenji asked.

Ben walked up to the door. He was about to press some of the keys but then hesitated. He put his hand against the steel door and pushed. The door swung open. “Not locked.”

“That was lucky,” I said.

Ben walked through and I was about to follow but Kenji stopped me.

“Guys, hold up,” he said. “This is not good. The door is open which means the security of this facility has been compromised. We have to be careful. We have to assume that the infected could already be inside. Stay close. Stay alert.”

I nodded and apologized for being careless. Ben on the other hand just kept walking. We followed the big man through the door and into a long concrete hallway.

“I think I know why the door wasn’t locked,” Jack said.

Bloody hand prints were smeared on the handle of the door, the keypad, and the walls. The buttons used for the code were also covered in blood.

“I guess they didn’t have time to lock it properly,” I said.

The hallway then led into a garage. Two Humvees were parked side by side.

The roller doors to the garage were riddled with bullet holes. Sunlight from the desert filtered through, highlighting the trajectory of the bullets.

On the floor, surrounding the Humvees were hundreds of shells and casings.

There was more blood. And multiple black scorch marks on the walls and the roof, like someone had used a flamethrower in here.

More bloody hand prints.

Ben had moved further ahead. He was checking the Humvees to see if they still worked.

Daniel bent down and picked up a bullet shell. “Looks like they were shooting through the garage door.”

“Making a final stand,” Kenji added.

“Do the Humvees work?” Jack asked hopefully.

“Don’t know,” Ben replied. “No keys.”

We made our way up a set of stairs that led into the main research area of the facility.

We found another large metal door. It had a biohazard symbol marked on it, and a warning that read:

Authorized personnel only.

Hazardous Materials inside.

Hazmat suits and respirators must be worn at all times.

But below this official warning was another one.

It was not official.

It was written in blood.

It read:

Infected inside. Do not enter.

“Oh great,” Jack said. “They’re inside.”

Kenji put his ear up to the door. “I can’t hear anything.”

“Should we open it?” I asked. “Take care of them?”

“Hell no,” Jack said. “Totally not worth the risk. And besides, we’ve only got one shotgun. That’s not enough fire power.”

We just had to hope that the door was a sufficient barrier to whatever was on the other side. It looked pretty sturdy. It was made of solid steel after all.

We kept moving. We came to what appeared to be the mess hall. Trays of food were still on the tables. It looked like the food had been sitting there for a few days at least. Maybe less.

The mess hall area had windows that looked out into the desert and over at the military side of the outpost. The windows however, were all spray-painted black. There were only a few tiny areas that had been scratched clear, like little peep holes, so you could see out. The black paint gave the whole room a dark, murky feel.

I peeked through one of the holes. Outside, it was bright and sunny. Heat waves shimmering off the hot desert ground. The military building looked to be in much better shape. Although admittedly, I couldn’t see much. And the windows on that side had also been spray-painted black. Ditto for the windows of the walkway that connected the two buildings.

“Maybe we should get over there,” I said, referring to the military side of the facility. “Might be safer? This place is giving me the creeps.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Daniel said. “We might be able to find some weapons as well. Kenji, what do you think?”

There was no response.

Kenji was on the other side of the room, standing over by a closed door marked ‘infirmary’. He was looking at something on the ground.

“Kenji?” Daniel asked.

“We’ve got a fallen soldier here,” Kenji finally answered.

We moved cautiously over to where he was standing. We were very hesitant, especially since we were unarmed and we all knew that this person could very well be infected.

The soldier was sitting on the floor. His back was resting against the door marked ‘infirmary’.

“He must’ve stayed behind,” Daniel said.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked. “Is he dead?”

His uniform was covered in blood. There was so much that we couldn’t read his name on his jacket. Gripped in his right hand was a hatchet. His severed left arm was lying on the ground next to him in a pool of blood. A tourniquet was tightened around his left bicep.

“Well? Is he dead?” Jack asked.

“I… I think so,” Kenji replied.

“Where the hell did the rest of the soldiers go?” I asked. “What happened to this guy’s arm?”

“They didn’t take the Humvees,” Daniel said. “There’s no way they would run off on foot.”

“Yeah, how would they get past all those infected out there?” Jack said.

“Maybe they were airlifted out?” Kenji suggested. “Or they could’ve left through the ‘rabbit’ hole. Maybe that’s why the door was unlocked.”

“So why did they leave this guy behind?” I asked.

“Maybe he volunteered?” Ben offered. “Maybe they knew he had been bitten?”

“We should take care of him now,” Jack said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know what I mean. I mean we should make sure he doesn’t turn.”

“Oh, right,” I said, my brain feeling as though it was processing everything in slow motion. “We should at least move him somewhere else. He’s gonna start stinking up the joint soon.”

“Guys, come on,” Maria said. “Show a bit of respect. This man was a soldier. He deserves to be treated a little better.”

“Look, that’s great and all,” Jack said. “But we don’t have the time for a proper burial or anything.”

“I’m not talking about a proper burial,” Maria replied. “But we’re talking about him as if he didn’t matter. Like he’s a piece of rotting meat. People deserve better. We can’t just become animals. We can’t. We start down that road and we’ll end up like the priest.”

Maria was right. We could not afford to start down that road. It was a slippery slope. Just as I was about to suggest maybe taking him into a different room at least, there was a muffled sound coming from the other side of the door. “Oh no,” I whispered.

We all backed away from the door.

“Damn. There are more of them inside,” Jack said. “And this door isn’t reinforced like the other one.”

“Maybe this guy was guarding the door, making sure they didn’t get out,” Maria suggested.

The person on the other side of the door started making noise to get our attention. Banging and thumping on the walls. “Hey!” he shouted. “Is someone there? Help! Let me out. I am not infected!”

“We have to move the dead soldier,” Maria said. “We have to unlock this door.”

I was about to say that maybe opening the door, or touching this dead body without gloves or protective clothing, might not be the best idea, when the soldier suddenly opened his eyes.

He held up his one good hand. “Stop,” he whispered. “Don’t.”

We all took another step back.

“Whoa, he’s alive?” I said, my brain again processing everything in slow motion.

“Don’t let him out,” the soldier said. “He’s a liar. He’s one of them.”