Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 (7 page)

In a matter of minutes everyone is asleep,
and I’m alone, staring up at the night sky.

I’ve got first watch because I convinced everyone that I could handle it. And
right now, I am completely regretting this decision. The simple act of keeping
my eyes open is hard, hard work. I’m already exhausted. And fighting sleep is
fighting a losing battle.

I’m also still unbelievably thirsty, even
after all the water I’ve consumed this evening. But for once, I have the
ability and the luxury to do something about it. I pick up a water bottle that
was sitting by my feet. I raise it to my lips to take a drink, but the bottle
is completely empty. I must’ve drank the whole bottle while we were talking
around the campfire. I hadn’t even realized. The rest of the bottles were empty
as well.

The only person who had any water left was
Billy.

I decide to fill the bottles. Hopefully,
moving and walking around will wake me up.

I get to my feet quietly, careful not to
wake the others. I gather up a couple of empty bottles and head for the water’s
edge. I’ve only taken a few steps away from the small camp fire, but already
I’m having trouble seeing. There’s plenty of stars overhead, but Billy was
right, it is a lot darker down here in the oasis.

I have to watch my step.

According to Billy, this oasis is actually
part of a massive river that cuts right through the desert. Most of it is
underground. It starts right up in the top end, in the tropical part of the
country. The monsoonal rains fill it up, and eventually the water makes its way
down here.

I kneel at the edge of the narrow river and
begin filling the bottles, amazed that this water is actually rain water from a
completely different part of the world.

I fill one bottle and I’m about to fill
another when I hear a noise.

A splash of water.

Footsteps.

“Kenji?”

My hand automatically reaches for my gun in
the waist of my pants. I drop the bottle on the ground and the water begins
spilling out. Normally this would be a sin, a crime punishable by death. But
right now I don’t care that I am wasting precious, life-giving water.

“Hello?”

There is no answer.

I spin around in a circle. I am alone.

I could’ve sworn I heard footsteps.

Am I hearing things? Am I imagining
monsters in the dark?

“Sarah?”

More footsteps.

No, I am not imagining things.

This is real.

I take my gun out, flick the safety off. “I
can hear you. I have a gun.”

More movement in the dark. More footsteps.

“Billy?”

Again, there’s no answer. My imagination
kicks into overdrive. Possible scenarios flash before my eyes in an instant.

There’s an infected person down here,
stumbling aimlessly through this canyon, through this oasis.

Maybe there’s another survivor down here.

Maybe they’re hostile.

Maybe they’re friendly.

Maybe they’re just like me.

I hear what sounds like a foot dragging
across gravel. I hear water splashing. But I can’t see anything.

“Who’s there?” I ask this question loud
enough to wake the others. “Answer me, or I’ll open fire!”

I’ve got my gun raised and ready. Finger on
the trigger.

But I have no target.

Was it a crocodile?

More water splashing. Closer this time.

I back away from the water’s edge.

“I can hear you,” I say, trying desperately
to hide the fear in my voice. “If you don’t answer, I will open fire. I will
shoot you. I will kill you.”

I really do not want to open fire.

A gunshot will echo and reverberate off
these walls of rock. There’s no telling what kind of attention a gunshot will
draw to us. The bad kind probably. And besides, I have nothing to shoot at. I’d
be blindly shooting into the darkness, wasting ammunition.

I continue backing away. I continue
scanning the water.

But there is nothing.

No movement.

I see bubbles. I think. I’m not really
sure. I aim the gun. I wait.

“I will open fire!”

The bubbles disappear.

I keep expecting to see eyes, glowing eyes,
staring back at me.

“Kenji!”

I keep walking backwards and I trip over a
rock or a log. Or a pile of mud or dirt. I don’t know what it was. It’s too
damn dark down here. I land flat on my ass. And now that I am on the ground I
expect to be attacked. I expect someone or something to rush at me. I sit up
immediately. I aim the gun at nothing. At the darkness.

“Kenji!”

“It’s OK,” Kenji says, appearing behind me.
“I’m right here. What’s wrong?”

Kenji kneels down next to me. Rifle in
hand. Sarah and Billy are behind him.

Billy is holding a branch from the fire.
One end of it is glowing. He holds it above his head, like a lamp. And it
actually gives off some pretty good light. I probably should’ve thought of
doing this before I left to fill up the water bottles.

“I heard someone,” I whisper. “They were
right there. It sounded like they were in the water. I don’t know…”

I am speaking fast. I am making no sense
whatsoever.

“Did you get a look at them?” Billy asks.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a bird or
something?” Sarah says.

“It wasn’t a goddamn bird,” I snap. “I
heard footsteps.”

“Any chance it was a crocodile?” Kenji
asks.

“No,” Billy says, answering for me. “Crocs
stay up north. In the top end.”

Kenji puts his hand on my shoulder. “What
were you doing out here by yourself? You know the rule. No one walks off
alone.”

I lower my head. “I know. I just thought… I
thought we were safe down here. I just wanted to fill the bottles up.”

“We should move away from the water,” Billy
says, thinking it over. “Just in case it actually was a croc.”

“I thought you said they wouldn’t come this
far down?” Sarah says.

Billy shrugs his shoulders. “We’ve all seen
weirder things.”

Kenji helps me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s
get back to the campfire. We’ll fill the bottles first thing in the morning.”
He then pauses, thinks it over. “Actually, bring the light over here, over the
water. I’ll fill these water bottles now.” He then looks to the sky. “It’ll be
dawn soon. Probably in a few hours. We won’t be here for much longer.”

“We should stay here another day at least,”
Billy says.

Kenji shakes his head. “We can’t afford to
waste any more time. We appreciate what you’ve done for us. But we need to keep
moving.”

“I understand,” Billy says. “But trust me,
you should rest for as long as possible. You will need your strength.”

I don’t like this idea at all. I’m too
scared. There’s someone or something else down here with us. “We need to go,” I
say. “We need to go right now. I don’t want to stay down here for another
second. We’re not alone.”

“We can’t go now,” Billy says. “It’s still
too dark.
Gotta
wait for first light.”

Kenji tells me to get some rest. “We’ll be
heading out in a few hours. I’ll keep watch.”

I finally agree, realizing that while as
long as it’s dark, we weren’t going anywhere. We make our way back towards the
campfire. I tell Kenji to keep his eyes and his ears open. I tell him to watch
the water.

Kenji takes over sentry duty and I try and get some much needed sleep. But
sleep is impossible to come by. I am too damn scared. My mind keeps showing me
things that could be lurking in the dark, lurking in the water.

We have so much to fear.

The infected.

The nano-swarms.

The military.

The company.

My mind races and races. Adrenalin courses
through my veins. Initially I am too afraid to sleep, too revved up on fear.
But eventually exhaustion wins out and I drift off to sleep.

It is a quick and dreamless sleep.

And I wake suddenly, snapping my eyes open.
It is early morning. Early dawn. And my heart is racing.

My instincts… my gut is telling me
something is wrong. I turn my head slightly.

Kenji is on his knees, with his rifle
shouldered and raised. He is aiming at the water.

Someone shouts at him. “Drop the weapon!”

Kenji slowly and reluctantly lowers his
rifle.

I realize that I have woken to the sounds
of a standoff. And not knowing what else to do, I roll over, reaching for my
rifle.

A shot is fired right next to my hand, a
puff of red dust explodes in my face.

I freeze.

“Do not move!” a voice demands. “The next
shot will not be a warning.”

I put my hands in the air. Sarah and Kenji
do the same.

We have surrendered. But to who?

Billy remains still. He appears to be calm.
He appears to be completely unafraid.

“Stay down and no one gets hurt.”

I turn my head in the direction of the
voice, careful not to make any sudden movements. I look out over the narrow
river.

I see them.

They come up and out of the water. They are
Evo Agents. Two of them.

Sent by the company.

Sent to kill.

They are faceless killer robots.

One of them has a long barreled rifle with
a silencer attached to it. This is a sniper rifle. And if this guy is half as
good as Kenji is, he could kill us all,
he
could kill
us right now. He could’ve killed us from a mile away.

The other guy moves forward, leading the
way. I get the feeling he is in charge.

They quickly make their way over to us and
they take our weapons. All of them.

The three handguns.

The two rifles.

Kenji’s knife.

Billy’s knife.

Wait. Billy had a knife? How did we miss
that yesterday?

The Evo Agents unload the guns and throw
them a short distance away.

“What are you guys doing here?” Kenji asks.

“That’s none of your damn business,” the
sniper says.

“Are you looking for someone?”

No answer.

“You’re looking for the doctors,” Kenji
says. “Aren’t you?”

“What the hell do you know about that?”

“If you promise to let us go, I’ll tell you
everything I know.”

“Don’t try and bargain your way out of
this.”

“Have you seen anyone down here?” the other
one, the leader asks. He points to a nearby rock. A flat boulder. “See the
blood?”

There’s a small amount of blood splatter.
We didn’t see it yesterday. Was it too dark when we got here? Or were we too
distracted by the prospect of fresh water, by the beauty of this oasis.

Maybe we were just too damn exhausted to
notice.

“We know one of them has been here,” the
sniper says. “Maybe both of them.”

“Doctor Kumar Singh,” I say under my
breath.

The man in the gas mask.

This is where he would come. I begin to see
more splatters of blood on the rocks, on the ground near the banks of the
river. I imagine him kneeling down at the water’s edge, drinking, cleaning his
wounds.

He would know to come here. Of course he
would. He is a survivor. He is a warrior. He knows the terrain of his
battlefield. He knows everything.

Was he stalking me last night?

Despite the rising heat of the desert, I
shiver. I feel cold.

“Anything you want to tell us?” the leader
asks.

“You won’t find him,” I whisper. “You won’t
stop him.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, you won’t find him.”

He is a ghost.

“Tell us what you know,” the leader says.
“Tell us right now.”

“We know they were evacuated from the
Fortress,” Kenji answers.

“And we know you’ve tried to get them out
before,” I add. “Same for Maria Marsh. Same for Kim Richards. But they keep
failing.
You keep failing
. You fail
because there are too many forces working against you. And he won’t let you
win.”

“You were down there?” the leader asks. “In
the Fortress?”

I nod my head slowly.

The sniper swears under his breath. “We’re
gonna
have to call this in. We’ll need to bring these
people with us.” He then takes his helmet off.

And I can’t believe how young this guy is.
He’s only a couple of years older than me.

“What are you doing?” the leader asks.

“It’s hot. No one’s here. Believe me, I
checked. There’s nothing but heat mirages for three hundred miles in all
directions.”

Billy looks at him. He smiles. And then… he
starts laughing.

His laugh is maniacal. It is absolutely
terrifying.

“What the hell is so funny?” the sniper
asks.

“Mr. Super Soldier. You’ve just gone and
done the dumbest thing you will ever do in your whole life.”

“You need to keep your mouth shut,” the
leader says. “You people
wanna
live? Then you better
start cooperating.”

“You’re not going to let us live,” I say.
“You are killers. Your orders are to kill.”

“Like we said, if you cooperate. You live.
If you give us any trouble, you will die.”

“You don’t want this on your head,” Kenji
says. “Believe me. You don’t want this.”

I feel like this is a hopeless situation. I
feel like we’re about to be executed down here, in this hidden oasis. Jack and
Kim and Maria will never know what happened to us. They will never find us. And
this thought breaks my heart. I am about to give up hope, but then out of the
corner of my eye, I see a person… a girl.

She has appeared from nowhere, from thin
air.

Billy motions with his head over to the
water. And the Evo Agent, the sniper who just took his helmet off, he turns
around.

She is standing by the water’s edge.

A girl. A teenager. A few years younger
than me. She is quite small.

She’s wearing an old white dress.

Her hair is a mess.

She is covered in dirt and dust and grime.

And probably blood.

She is barefoot.

“Jesus Christ,” the sniper says, “Where did
she come from?”

This is the question on everyone’s mind.

The girl drops to her knees. She leans over
the water, but she does not drink.

“Little girl?” the leader says. “What are
you doing out here? Where did you come from?”

She does not respond. She continues leaning
over the water, staring into the water.

“Goddammit,” the leader says. “Go and get
her.”

Billy continues smiling. And again, I can’t
help but think he looks happy. Delusional. Does he know the seriousness of our
situation? Does he know what these guys do to people? To innocent civilians? To
their own?

They are killers. They are cold blooded
killers.

The sniper retrieves the girl. He grabs her
by the arm, she doesn’t fight. She just walks over to us. Her eyes are glazed
over, her feet are covered in dirt and blisters and sores. Her legs are covered
in blood. Her face is blank. She shows no signs of pain. She appears to be in
some sort of catatonic state.

“Are you with them?” the leader asks.

The girl does not answer.

“What are you doing out here?”

And why is she alone? Why is she not
wearing any shoes? No sane person would run off into the desert with no shoes.
Not unless they were being chased by something big and bad and scary, not
unless they were being chased by something
evil
.

“They’re all dead,” she whispers. “They’re
all dead.”

“She’s lost it, man,” the sniper says.
“She’s gone.”

I feel for this girl. I really do. But why
is she breaking down now? People have been dying for months. In the first two
weeks of the outbreak, most of the population of Australia died. Over twenty
million people were killed. If she didn’t break then, why is she breaking now?
What has happened to her?

“We should tie her up,” the sniper says.
“Bring her with us.”

“We’re not bringing her with us,” the
leader answers. “She’s just a random.”

“She’s a girl. She’s alone.”

“Not our problem. Not our concern. And you
know this has got nothing to do with our mission.”

“These people aren’t our mission either.”

“No, but they might have relevant
information,” the leader says, keeping a level head. “They might be able to
help. This girl can’t help anyone at the moment.”

I begin to wonder if knowledge and
information will keep us alive. Will they actually let us live?

Probably not.

And it’s not like we actually knew anything
that could help these guys.

Doctor Hunter is dead.

The man in the gas mask has disappeared.

This information is no help to anyone.

“They’re all dead,” the girl whispers
again.

“It’s OK,” the sniper says. “We’ll get you
out of here.”

The girl’s eyes finally come into focus.
She shakes her head. “Out? No. I need to stay down here. I’m safe down here.
I’m hidden.”

“You’re not safe here.”

“I am. You can’t take me back. I won’t let
you.”

“What the hell are you talking about? We’re
offering you a way out. We can get you to safety.”

His partner, the leader, he didn’t like
that. “Hey, don’t make promises you can’t keep. We’re not taking anyone. We
don’t have the resources for this.”

“We have to take her. She’s just a girl.
She…”

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

“She reminds me of my sister… I can’t…”

“I’m not going back,” the girl repeats.
“I’m not going with you.”

She lunges for the Evo Agent, the sniper.
The sudden movement catches him off guard. The girl grabs his side arm, slides
it easily and effortlessly out of the holster.

She knows her way around a gun. She flicks
the safety off.

“Drop the weapon!” the leader orders.

Both Evo Agents have moved back, the sniper
stands upright, rifle raised and ready, aiming directly at the girl’s head.

The leader has dropped to one knee, his
rifle aiming at the girl’s chest. “Drop it now!”

There’s no way she’d be able to shoot them
both.

There’s no way out of this.

But she doesn’t want a way out.

She doesn’t want to leave this oasis.

She doesn’t want to leave this desert.

She doesn’t aim the gun at anyone but
herself.

And in the moment before she kills herself,
she looks at Billy.

Her eyes go wide. I see fear. I see terror.

She puts the barrel in her mouth.

She pulls the trigger.