Two kilometers wasn’t far at all. I could make it.

I started whispering to myself then. “I can make it. I can make it.”

Kind of like ‘The Little Engine That Could’.

I was crouching down, trying to collect my thoughts, studying the GPS, trying to memorize it so I could turn the screen off. I wanted to conserve the battery power, but mostly I didn’t want the little bit of light it was emitting to attract any of the infected. The light wasn’t much, especially in the dust storm, but I couldn’t afford to take any chances.

Be invisible, I thought. Daniel said the most important thing, the only thing that mattered, was being invisible. I thought about using the cloaking device, but I figured there was no need because the dust storm was providing plenty of cover. And I didn’t want to waste the suit’s power supply. If the suit’s battery ran out, I’d be screwed.

I checked the control screen one more time. The battery indicator said it was at ninety-six percent. Daniel said it could last for about a week. But using the features like the cloaking device would chew through the battery. Hopefully we wouldn’t be here for that long. I really wanted this protective suit at full power. I was still skeptical that I’d be able to wrestle a grizzly bear, but being protected from the infected and their snapping jaws was crucial. Especially now considering that I was alone, unarmed, and in the middle of the goddamn city. Sydney was home to six million people. Those six million people were now hosts for the Oz virus. Violent, psychopathic hosts.

I shook my head. I needed to stay positive. I needed to drown out and ignore the fear that was seconds away from paralyzing me.

“I can make it,” I whispered again.

Yeah, right. What if you get surrounded? What if they start chasing you? Where are you gonna go? What are you gonna do? You can’t even see.

“Shut up, shut up.”

I suddenly wondered if the guys would leave me here. If they couldn’t find me, or if I couldn’t make it to them, would they just pack up and leave? No, they wouldn’t do that, would they? I’m their insurance policy, their ace in the hole. I’m here to make sure that Maria and the others don’t run away at the first sight of them. I was valuable, wasn’t I? They needed me, right?

Stay positive, I reminded myself. Daniel wouldn’t leave you. There’s no way.

I looked at the little blue ball again on the map. Two kilometers. Not far at all.

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I was about to make a move but just then I heard something. A twig snapping, followed by footsteps. Fast footsteps. Running footsteps.

The infected. They were here. They were right freakin here.

I held my breath. I froze. I didn’t dare move in case they saw me, even though they seemed to be focused on something else. They hadn’t seen me, or smelled me. Or whatever sense they use to interact with the world around them. At that moment, they were just ghosts, corpses running through the oppressive red dust.

I wondered where they were running too. It looked like they were running towards the harbor, in the opposite direction to where the Osprey crash landed. Maybe there was something else or someone else in the area? Someone less fortunate than me.

Another group of about ten or twenty sprinted past. And then thirty, and then more and more, until it was a stampede. I couldn’t take it any longer. I turned and ran. I ran as fast as I could back through the trees, snapping and breaking branches again. I was trying to avoid the trees, trying to be as quiet as possible but it was no use. I was going too fast. I wondered if they heard me. I wondered if the stampede had suddenly changed direction and was now coming for me. Even if they weren’t, I was convinced that they were. In my mind’s eye, they were right behind me.

After about a full minute of sprinting, I finally felt like I’d put enough distance between myself and the infected. Surprisingly though, I hadn’t run out of breath and my muscles were barely fatigued. I remembered the last time I was here in the middle of Sydney, running for my life. I clearly remembered the burning sensation of lactic acid, my legs, my arms feeling like lead. My lungs feeling like they were about to explode out of my chest. But now, thanks to the NBC suit, I didn’t feel any of that. I guess I probably wouldn’t have survived if I wasn’t wearing it.

I looked over my shoulder to make sure they hadn’t followed me. I was alone again. At least, I thought I was alone. There was really no way to tell with zero visibility.

But it was strange. Apart from the few hundred that just ran past, it was eerily quiet. I wondered where the hell the rest of them were hiding. Maybe the military had actually done a decent job of clearing out the city before they abandoned it?

A few seconds later I stepped out of the botanical gardens and on to a street. It was a shock to go from being surrounded by trees to the cityscape so quickly and suddenly.

It was a main street, a motorway or something. There were four lanes going both directions, with other roadways snaking in and around and all over the place.

It was the road that led out of the Sydney Harbor Tunnel.

The mouth of the tunnel had collapsed in, destroyed by the explosive charges set off by the military as part of the containment protocol. This was the end of the tunnel they blew up first. They didn’t want anyone to get through here. And they did a damn good job of making sure no one did. But in the end what did it even matter?

I walked up to the collapsed mouth of the tunnel, to the concrete rubble. Amazingly, there was still some heat coming off the smoldering ruins. There was a small gap between two crushed cars that led into the tunnel. They were squashed up against a bus.

I looked inside. It was dark. I couldn’t see anything. But my mind showed me things, horrific things that I hoped I would never see again. I thought I heard something coming from the darkness of the tunnel. A scream, maybe. It was hard to tell if it was real or if I was imagining it.

I decided not to hang around to find out. I turned and walked away, trying desperately to force the images and the memories of that day from my mind.

But I couldn’t.