“Everyone under the tables,” Kenji ordered.

Daniel activated his cloaking device again and grabbed the binoculars.

We ducked behind the tables and chairs of the forward base of operations, hoping the drone wouldn’t see us, praying the cammo net that covered this temporary headquarters would be enough to conceal us and our body heat from the Predator’s infrared sensors.

I positioned myself under a table near the front of the tent so I could see what was going on.

The Predator appeared to be searching the airport again. This time more closely. It was circling the terminals, slowing down to the point where it looked like it might stall and fall out of the sky.

“What’s it looking for?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Daniel answered.

The drone finished circling the terminals and then moved over to the hangars.

“Why is it circling those hangars?” Maria asked. “What’s over there?”

“Maybe they’ve got some jets stored inside,” Kenji offered. “Or maybe they want to see if they can use them?”

“Why did they even abandon the airport in the first place?” Jack asked. “It looks perfectly safe to me.”

“Yeah, why did they?” Maria said. “Isn’t the airport like, really important? Don’t they need it?”

Daniel ignored the questions. He was focused on the red sky, keeping the binoculars pointed directly at the drone.

Kenji moved up next to me, kneeling in a shooter’s position. “Judging by the bullet shells and the dried blood at the perimeter fence, I’d say there was a huge struggle here. A last stand. If I had to guess, I’d say the military were looking to reclaim it.”

The Predator drone banked high and wide, disappearing from view. And just like that it was gone.

“That thing is starting to get annoying,” Jack said.

Daniel deactivated his cloaking device. He was about to put the binoculars down, but he picked them back up and looked over at the hangars. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Over there!” he pointed.

“What? What the hell is it?”

He didn’t say anything. He just gave me the binoculars. I looked in the direction he was pointing.

Over in the shadows of the hangars, next to the international terminal was a figure.

It was a man.

And he was displaying the familiar movements of someone infected with the Oz virus. He was stumbling forward, his arms were flailing. He then lifted his head. It was as if he looked right at me, right down the lens of the binoculars. And then he started sprinting, coming right for us.

There was no way he could see us, right? He was too far away, wasn’t he?

We all stared at this lone infected man for a while. We should’ve reacted right away. But it was weirdly hypnotic. It was frightening, yet fascinating. I couldn’t turn away. He was running for us, as fast as he could. His leg looked bent, like it was broken, like his bone was sticking out through his kneecap.

“How do they do it?” Maria asked. “How can they keep going like that?”

“Pain receptors are completely shut down,” Kenji said as he stood up, shouldered his rifle and flicked the safety off.

He looked through the scope, measured the distance and sized up his target. It was too far away to shoot from a standing position. He moved over to the corner of a table and rested the barrel of his rifle on it. He looked through the scope again and took aim. He fired a single shot, hitting the infected man, blowing his left arm clean off.

But it kept running towards us.

Kenji took a deep breath, adjusted the sight, fired again. This time he missed completely. He took another deep breath, keeping his composure. He exhaled slowly. He fired, aiming for its legs, blowing apart its already damaged knee. The infected man fell to the ground.

But the damn thing kept clawing its way forward.

Thankfully it was no longer running at full sprint. Kenji had bought us some time. I was starting to realize that was as good as it was ever going to get. We were never going to be safe here. Not until we were long gone out of the city, out of the country.

We started arguing again. There had to be more of them. There just had to be. Why else would the military abandon this place? We all saw the heavy duty machine guns at the perimeter fence. We all saw the empty bullet shells and the dried blood. How many infected had come through here? How many would it take to overthrow the military’s base?

There was no time to rest and eat and rehydrate. Not anymore. We had to make a choice. We had to make it right now. And we had to live or die by the consequences.