At that point, all I wanted to do was run back down to the bank vault and lock myself in and stay there for the rest of time.

But I knew that wasn’t an option.

“Come here,” Ben said from the adjacent room. I guess it was like the church office or something.

“Why?”

“You’ll need one of these. Just in case.”

He was digging around in his gym bag. He then held up a grenade.

“No. No way. I hate those things. They’re too dangerous.”

“It’s not a frag grenade. It’s an EMP grenade.”

“A what?”

“Electromagnetic pulse grenade,” he said as he handed it to me. “If you see black smoke, pull the pin and throw it.”

“Throw it where?”

“You gotta be kidding me? Throw it at the black smoke! The closer the better. The pulse will stun the nano-swarm temporarily.”

“Wait, before we do any of that, we need to get the guys. Where did baldy say they were being kept?”

“They’re locked up in the basement.”

“We should go and get them first. Kenji and Daniel, they’re trained for this kind of thing.”

“Trust me; there is no way in hell they are trained for this. And besides, if they’re still drugged up, they’ll be useless. Grab that bag. Come with me.”

“What? Me?”

“Yeah. And hurry up. We don’t have long. I’m guessing the nano-swarm knows we’re here. Especially after all that noise.”

“It? It knows we’re here?”

“Yeah, the black smoke. It learns. It gets smarter.”

“Wait. I don’t think you understand. Kenji, Daniel. They’re soldiers. If they’ve been drugged, then we need to wait for them to get it out of their system.”

“We don’t have time for that. Look, I know they’re soldiers. But trust me; they do not know how to deal with this. The nano-swarm is not going anywhere. It knows there is food here. And it’s got a taste for meat.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The nano-swarm. That black smoke cloud thing out there. I don’t know exactly what it is, or where it came from. But I do know this. It hunts. It feeds. That’s all it does.”

“How? How do you know that?”

“First-hand experience. I’ve seen it in action. General Spears briefed us back at the Fortress. He called them, ‘rogue nano-swarms’. The recon teams called it ‘black smoke’. Another one of the ‘anomalies’.”

“Can’t we just hide?” I asked. “Can’t we make a run for it?”

“No. It will follow us. Chase us down.”

“Why don’t we wait it out? Down in the vault?”

“Look, this town is the last place in the world we should be. The priest has turned it into a fast food joint drive thru for those monsters. He trained them to feed here. I don’t want to spend a minute longer in this town than necessary. The way I see it. We only have one option.”

“Which is?”

“We have to take it down.”

Once again it was do or die. Once again it was time to make a stand.

“I need your help, little lady.”

It was weird hearing Ben ask for my help. He was a huge man, and at that moment he was covered in blood, cut up to all hell, gun in hand. He looked like the last person in the world who needed help from anybody, except maybe a psychiatrist. And on the flip side, he’s the last person in the world you would normally agree to help. There’s a reason parents tell their kids not to take candy from strangers. It was to avoid people like this.

But I had no choice. This was not a normal situation.

I took a deep breath. “How do we kill it?”

“We can’t kill it.”

“What?”

“Just grab the bloody bag. We need to do this now.”

“No,” I said. And as soon as the word left my mouth I regretted it.

Ben didn’t look like the kind of guy who heard the word ‘no’ very often.

He stared at me. Waiting for a damn good reason why we shouldn’t go right now.

“We need the guys,” I said. “We have to get them first. We’re stronger as a group.”

Kenji’s wise words coming out of my mouth.

Ben thought it over. And finally gave in. “Fine. We do it your way. But we have to hurry.”