We made our way down to the church basement, where the bald guy had told Ben they’d taken the boys.

Sure enough, that’s where they were.

They must’ve taken them down there after they had tied Maria and myself up, I thought. Then again, they could’ve done it at the same time. We were all unconscious.

The guys were lying on the cots. They were all tied to one another.

Ben checked their pulses quickly. “They’re alive.”

We untied them and waited for them to come back around. Kenji and Jack were still sound asleep. Daniel was the only one sort of half awake. He was completely confused and disorientated. It took him a while to understand what was going on. Once he finally caught up, he just shook his head. He looked exhausted. Upset. Like he had let the group down.

Kenji finally woke.

Jack was still asleep.

“The water was spiked,” I said.

When I told them what had happened they all reacted differently. At first they were confused.

And then angry. Very angry.

Jack was awake for a little bit, but then a few minutes later he was asleep again. Apparently he had downed most of the bottle of water.

We decided to relocate to the bank vault as it was slightly more secure than the church basement. And not nearly as creepy. Kenji said the children’s toys were giving him the ‘heebie jeebies’. His exact words. Also, Daniel wanted to make sure Maria was all right.

As we made our way up the stairs, I told them to brace themselves for the gruesome scene at the church altar.

No one said a word as we walked past.

Daniel was frozen, looking up at the crucified priest.

Kenji had to pull him away.

Ben stepped outside the church and made sure the road was empty. He gave us the all clear, and waved us forward. We finally made it down to the bank vault. I don’t know about the others, but being underground, in the bank vault, did make me feel a little bit safer. I could see why the townspeople had chosen to hide down there.

Maria was waiting for us. She was not happy. I told her that she should consider herself lucky. There was no way she would’ve wanted to see the crime scene upstairs. But she did not believe me. I think she was about to punch me for locking her down in the vault by herself. But then she saw Jack.

Kenji carried him in. He was still unconscious. Maria helped put Jack down on the floor. She sat with him, stroking his hair, making sure he was all right. All her attention was now on Jack. Luckily, this had saved me from her fists.

“What happened up there?” Maria asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said.

“What?”

“Trust me; you did not want to see that.”

We caught our breath, tried to compose ourselves. I picked up the bottle of water they had thrown in with us when we were first locked up. I took a sip, offered it to the guys.

“Are you sure it’s not spiked?” Daniel asked.

“We were all drinking it earlier, remember? It should be fine.”

He took the bottle from me and sniffed it. And then had a sip.

Even though we knew this particular bottle of water was fine to drink, we all sniffed it before drinking it. And then we only took small sips at first. But we forced ourselves to drink. We needed to stay hydrated if we wanted any chance of getting out of this town alive.

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“We don’t have time for this,” Ben said. “We need to make a move.”

Ben wanted to get going right then and there. But I told him we weren’t going anywhere. Not without Jack.

“If this is going to work,” I said. “We need Jack.”

Ben was not happy, especially since we had to wait over an hour for Jack to come around. Initially he opened his eyes, but even then he was barely conscious. We fed him small sips of water for a while until he could finally speak. And then, when he finally regained his senses, he refused to drink the water, fearing it was also spiked. We had to assure him the water was drinkable.

It took him about another thirty minutes just to be able to stand.

After that, Ben said we couldn’t wait any longer. “It’ll be dark soon. We won’t be able to see it at night.”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought the priest said it only ever came on hot days.”

“It’s more active on warmer days,” Ben answered. “Like a reptile.”

“You mean it’s cold blooded?” I asked, completely confused.

“No. It uses the sun for energy.”

“So why can’t we just wait until the sun goes down? Won’t it lose power?”

“No. It doesn’t work like that. It has the ability to store energy.”

We could hear noises coming from upstairs. The hissing noise. Glass shattering. A noise that sounded like wood groaning.

“Does it sound like it’s going away?” Ben said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kenji asked. “What are those noises?”

“It’s the nano-swarm,” Ben said. “Black smoke. It’s looking for us. And it’s hungry. We need to take care of it now.”

Kenji did not understand at all. “Nano-swarm?”

“What happened up there?” Daniel asked. “What did you do to the priest? What happened to his men?”

“Justice,” Ben replied.

“How many are left?”

“None. They’re all dead.”

“You killed them all?”

“No. Some of them got away. But they didn’t make it very far.”

“Why not? What happened?”

“The black smoke found them.”

“What?”

Ben was fed up. He was getting more and more impatient. “How many times do I have to say this? There’s a goddamn rogue nano-swarm up there. It’s looking for food. Sooner or later it will find us. This bank vault won’t stop it.”

“No way. There’s no way,” Daniel said, his voice trailing off as he thought about the implications of what Ben was saying.

“So what do we do now?” Maria asked.

Good freakin question, I thought. What the hell do we do? How do we stop it?

Ben picked up his gym bag, and put it on the pallet of cash. He arranged some glow sticks around the bag, and zipped it open.

“I don’t know what it is exactly,” he said. “I only heard rumors. People just scared, telling ghost stories. From what I can tell, the nano-swarms have something to do with the cure.”

“The cure?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah. For the Oz virus. Apparently, the military tried out an experimental technology. Rushed it through without testing it properly. I guess they were desperate.”

“So what the hell does that black smoke thing have to do with a goddamn cure?” Kenji asked.

“Keep your voice down. I don’t have the answers. I only heard rumors.”

He took out a gun from the gym bag. It looked like an oversized machine gun, a rifle way bigger than any of the ones I’d seen. He also had a few more grenades.

“The black smoke thing,” he continued. “It’s a nano-swarm. Little tiny robots. A mechanical plague.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Why the hell would the military release a mechanical plague?” Maria asked.

“If I was a betting man, I’d say they released the nano-swarms in the hopes that it would ‘eat’ the Oz virus.”

“Eat it?”

“Yeah.”

He took out a long rectangular container from the gym bag and opened it up. He removed what appeared to be three metal spears that were about three feet in length. He loaded them into the large gun, one by one.

“These are harpoons,” he said. “They’re made out of tungsten. The tip is diamond coated. They are designed to pierce any and all surfaces.”

“What the hell for?” I asked.

“The harpoons are telescopic,” he continued. “They are fired from this launcher.”

“And then what?”

“The harpoons pierce the ground. You need to fire three to set up an EMP field. Fire the first two, set up the field. The third one activates it. The only problem is, the target has to be within the field for it to work.”

“So the pulse is directed inwards?” Daniel said.

“That’s right. With a normal electromagnetic pulse, the pulse moves outwards like a blast wave. The pulse destroys all electronics in the area. However, this is no good if you wanna use it as a weapon in the field. You’re just as likely to knock out your own equipment as well as your enemy’s equipment. So they designed this system. It concentrates the EMP inwards, in a contained field. The electromagnetic pulse shocks the nano-swarm, puts them in a state of hibernation. But it’s only a temporary solution. If we get up to the bell tower. We’ll have a clear shot.”

“And that’ll be the end of it, right?” I asked.

“It should be,” Ben said. “At least temporarily. I think.”

“Temporarily?” I asked. “This is the worst plan ever. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“This is the only plan we’ve got. We have to do this or we die. It’s as simple as that. These things, the monsters, and the black smoke, they know they can feed here. That’s why they keep coming back. We need to make a stand and then we need to get the hell out of here. Trust me; I’ve seen these things in action. This is the only way.”

“So how do we get it within the EMP field?” Kenji asked.

Ben smiled. “I’m glad you asked. To get the nano-swarm to cooperate, we need live bait.”