It was my watch first. Kenji was up with me. The others had passed out pretty quickly. Initially, it was hard to sleep out here in the desert, especially outside, and especially when Daniel and I had warned the others about the wild dogs that had attacked Daniel’s camp. We didn’t mean to scare anyone, but that’s what had happened. Maria was terrified. Daniel had to reassure her that the wild dogs were a long way from here.

Daniel was lying, of course. The wild dogs could’ve been anywhere. The only reassuring thing in my mind was that we hadn’t seen any wildlife at all. I think I had convinced myself that the wild dogs would want to stay close to a food source. So naturally they wouldn’t be anywhere near this area. Somehow, this line of reason made it easier for me to sleep at night. As for the others, they found it easier to sleep as we came to trust each other more and more. And trust in the guard duty, buddy system that we had established.

Kenji and I walked around the house, making sure all the doors were locked. Kenji pointed out to me the best locations to defend the house from. If it came down to that.

He said that we’d need to hold this house at all costs. Defend the first floor with everything that we had. And then defend the second floor with everything. At least until daylight.

I think he then realized that talking so frankly about defending this house to the death against a horde of infected was kind of freaking me out. So he changed the subject.

“How you holding up?” he whispered to me as we moved into a smaller bedroom. It looked like a girl’s room.

“I hate the night shift,” I answered. “When it’s dark. When there’s no moon, no stars, anything could be sneaking up on us.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. It’s best not to think about it.”

“But even on a night like tonight, it’s a full moon with really bright clear skies. My imagination still runs wild. I can’t help it. I keep imagining a lone dark figure, a shadow, running towards us. I mean, what’s worse? Knowing or not knowing. And does it even matter?”

“Don’t worry,” he said, trying to make me feel better. “You have to trust that we’re prepared to deal with whatever comes our way. That’s why we’re checking the doors. That’s why we’re scouting for the best shooting positions. We’re prepared. We’re ready. In the end, that’s all you can ask for. Plus, we’re miles from anywhere.”

“Yeah. I suppose.”

“Speaking of being prepared, I wanted to show you this,” he said as he handed me a small pocket knife. “It’s a flick knife. For emergencies.”

He showed me how to press the small button on the handle to get the blade to flick out. “Be careful not to cut yourself. Not that it’s very sharp.”

“If it’s not sharp, then what’s the point?”

He took the knife back off me. “Make a fist, hold it like this. Stab downwards. Aim for the head.”

“Oh,” I said as I suddenly realized what it was for.

“No point in cutting,” Kenji continued. “You need to stab.”

It was a blunt knife, not even sharp enough to cut skin. But the tip of the blade would be enough to do the trick.

I tried to imagine a scenario where I would need to use this knife.

A last resort.

Out of ammo.

No one left.

No one to help me.

Not even Kenji.

Just me, an infected undead monster, and a blunt flick knife.

I prayed that I would never have to use this knife.

I took the knife from Kenji and slid it in my back pocket. “Promise me,” I said. “Promise, you won’t leave me. That I won’t have to use this knife.”

“You know I can’t,” he said. “But I will do everything in my power to get you to safety.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll be safe back home. You can stay with us. We can start over. Everything will be fine.”

“Your parents hate me.”

“No, they don’t. They’re just; they’re not very good around people. My dad spends most of his time buried in his work. And then my mother worries that he’s going to have a heart attack or something. But trust me, when we get out of this, everything’s gonna be fine.”

“If,” I whispered.

“What?”

“If we get out of this.”

“Hey,” he said, making eye contact. “We are getting out of this. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

Even though it wasn’t the best of circumstances, I was happy to be back together with Kenji. Not ‘together’ as in boyfriend and girlfriend. Just together, as in occupying the same space. I know I shouldn’t be happy. Not in a place like this, not when so many people have died, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to tell him how I felt right then and there. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I made it back here. But I stopped myself. Like Daniel said earlier, we needed to keep our mouths shut and our guards up.

It was good advice.

This wasn’t the time or the place to fall in love and expose your emotions and your heart’s desire for the whole messed up world to see. I needed to be focused. Kenji needed to be focused. So I kept my guard up, my mouth shut, and my heart closed.

And I’ve regretted that decision ever since.

Kenji said he was going to check the ground floor and maybe the basement. He was about to leave, but then he turned, leant in and kissed me.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I just had to do that. Before we went any further.”

Before it was too late, I thought.

And then he left down the stairs.

I moved back into the main bedroom where everyone else was sleeping. I continued to look out over the front paddocks. The road stretched from north to south, disappearing on the dark horizon.

What a lonely road I thought.

At some point during the night Maria woke up and sat with me.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked.

“Nah. I keep thinking about, well about everything. Sydney in ruins, the speed that the virus has spread around Australia, the death toll.”

“Yeah.” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. “It keeps me awake as well. When I was back in Los Angeles I used to get really bad night terrors. I had insomnia and everything. Funny thing is, now that I’m back here, I don’t get them as much.”

“How come?”

“Don’t know. Maybe my brain is too tired. Maybe my subconscious knows I’m back in the line of fire and so it’s cutting me some slack or something. I don’t know.”

“Yeah. Maybe. The messed up thing is, it’s not just the Oz virus and the infected people that we have to worry about anymore, is it? That monster, that mechanical spider thing or whatever the hell it was. It’s too much. The odds are stacked too high. It’s just not fair. What chance do we have?”

Maria was worried and scared. You could hear it in her voice.

“Hey, it’s going to be all right. I mean, we still have each other. We’re a strong group. We’ve come a long way. We can make it.”

“I don’t know,” she continued. “We haven’t seen any survivors at all. Shouldn’t there be at least one or two groups of people out here? We can’t be the only ones. And that letter we found in the kitchen. What if when we do find survivors, what if they’ve gone mad or something? What if they’ve turned into complete savages?”

“That’s why we need to be careful. We need to stick together. We’re a formidable force when you think about it. We’re heavily armed. We’re being really careful. And we’ve got two soldiers with us.”

“Yeah. I suppose you’re right. I’m worried about Jack though. He puts on a brave face but I can tell he’s struggling.”

“What do you mean?”

“He keeps telling me that his parents got out of Sydney in time, that they’re safe at his grandfather’s farm. I think he’s trying to convince himself more than me. But I also think that deep down, he knows the reality. And I think it’s starting to get to him.”

Yeah, I thought. The reality was that his parents were dead. It was an awful reality.

I started to think about my own mother. And how I haven’t really even thought about her much. Does that even make sense? I don’t know. It’s confusing. But I think ultimately it’s just easier not to think about that stuff. Especially when we needed to be strong, when we needed to be focused on getting out of this place.

Then again, maybe I’ve already come to terms with the fact that she’s gone. That there’s no way she was evacuated. I saw the military’s ‘containment protocol’ in action. I saw the virus in action. There’s no way she got out. And I think I’ve accepted that. Almost.

As for Jack, well, he was strong. We all knew that. I saw just how strong he was when he saved me from drowning in Sydney Harbor. And when he jumped out of our escape boat and swam back for Maria when she had been captured. That was courage and strength, real, freakin, hardcore strength. But losing both parents at once, and Kim, his sister. His whole family. Not even Jack was strong enough to deal with that all by himself. Sooner or later he would lose it, he would break down. He needed to. It was only natural, it was only human. I just hoped he could keep it together for a little while longer, at least until we made it back to Daniel’s camp, back to the X-wing.

“Do you think he was serious when he said he was going to find his sister?” Maria asked.

Jack’s sister Kim was supposed to be in a quarantine facility in New Zealand. But at Sydney airport we found a computer that belonged to Doctor Hunter, one of the madmen responsible for the outbreak. On his computer we saw video footage of Kim being interviewed by another doctor. The footage clearly showed that she had been drugged. She was being held captive at a facility on Christmas Island. We think she was being used as a test subject in some sort of experiment. Possibly for a cure. Apparently this island was way off the west coast of Australia.

Despite the fact that the facility was so far away, and that it would probably be heavily guarded, and that even attempting to get there would be a suicide mission, Jack had told us all he was going to try and save her. With or without our help.

“Well?” Maria asked. “Do you?”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, yeah, I do. Jack is a stubborn guy. Once his mind is made up and once he knows you’re safe, I think he’ll do everything in his power to save his sister. That’s just the kind of guy he is. I guess that’s why he’s one of the good ones.”

Maria smiled at this. Even though she knew that if Jack ran off and tried to save Kim, it would be the death of him. “Yeah,” she said after a while. “He is one of the good ones.”

Once Maria had confessed her fears to me she finally went back to sleep.

I looked out the window, up at the galaxy of stars. At the moon. A sliver of cloud moved across it like a knife.