1914

‘Ready,’ the sergeant shouted.

The eight soldiers standing in a line moved their guns to their shoulders.

‘Aim,’ he continued.

The men moved the scopes into their eyelines.

Mamma squeezed me tightly.

‘Fire.’

A chorus of gunshots rang out, and the three men who stood against the wall fell to the ground. The sack fell off one of their heads, and that familiar redness poured out of them.

From among the firing squad, Luca emerged. ‘How is he?’ he asked Mamma, nodding at me.

Mother crouched down and looked into my eyes. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, shaking me slightly.

I nodded, but said nothing.

‘Luca, he… he didn’t need to see this.’

‘Yes,’ Luca insisted, a sternness to his voice. ‘He did.’

‘But-’

‘You agreed to the terms,’ Luca stressed. ‘Once this is over, you will act as watcher. And then, when you are gone, he will. He must know why.’

Mamma shook the tears from her eyes. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take, much less Thomas. They were good men, once.’

‘I’m sure they were. Once. But you’ve seen what they’ve done, what they’re capable of now.’

She shook her head in place of a response.

Luca flashed her a sad smile. ‘You won’t have to last much longer. The sarge says they’ve found the source. Up in the woods.’

I peered up at Mamma’s friend. ‘The box? The one I opened?’

It was Luca’s turn to crouch down this time. ‘That’s right, little one. We’re going to close it. This hell… it will all be over soon.’

* * *

2018

‘Grandad? Are you OK?’

He clutched at his heart and sank to the floor.

‘I failed, Daniel. I failed him.’

‘You haven’t failed anyone. We can fix this. We can fix this, right?’

Grandad said nothing for a moment, and then, finding new motivation, rose to his feet.

‘We must head into town,’ he stated.

‘How, Grandad? It’s too far, you can’t walk that far.’

He shook his head, grabbed his walking stick and coat, then made for the door. Still overwhelmed by all this new information, I followed in silence.

We walked out into the middle of the street, where Grandad flagged down a car that happened to be passing. Its driver, a concerned young woman, slowed to a halt next to us.

Grandad made sure that his cross necklace was on display as he bent to speak to the woman. He stammered as he spoke. ‘I’m sorry to do this, but do you think you might be able to drive us to the hospital? It’s an emergency.’

The woman paused for a moment, weighing up her options, before realising that she didn’t really have any choice in this scenario.

She nodded, and Grandad opened the passenger door.

Then, he whacked the driver around the head with his walking stick.

‘Grandad!’ I exclaimed. ‘What are you-’

‘We do what needs to be done, Daniel,’ he replied, holding the woman’s unconscious body. ‘Get the door, will you?’

I rushed around to the other side of the car, opened it, and pulled the woman out.

‘Just lay her on the ground there,’ Grandad suggested, pointing at the thick grass at the side of the road. I did as I was told, fearing that I might also get a whack around the head.

‘Will she be OK?’

‘Put it this way, Daniel: if I hadn’t done that, nobody would be OK. Now, drive.’

* * *

I drove as fast as this small Fiat punto would allow, weaving through the meandering streets until we arrived at the outskirts of Gstaad.

We were immediately ambushed by a man running out of a nearby building, an intense expression on his face.

Grandad and I braced ourselves. ‘Dear God, here they come.’

But as the man grew closer, I realised that the expression on the man’s face was not rage - but fear. What’s more, a knife poked out of his abdomen, and a stream of blood sprouted from the wound. He clutched at the wound so as to control the bleeding.

He patted on the car’s window, leaving a red handprint. ‘Help,’ he mumbled. ‘He’s… he’s…’

The man fell to the floor.

‘Drive,’ Grandad repeated his earlier command.

‘But, shouldn’t we call a-’

‘Drive!’ he shouted, fear in his eyes.

As we approached Mia’s house, a thundering noise began behind us. I didn’t stop to look for its source - getting into town was my only priority.

Only once we pulled up and exited the car, did we see where the noise was coming from.

Three military helicopters flew into town from behind us, each filled to the brim with soldiers - sitting with their feet hanging over the side.

One of the three helicopters landed in the road near us, and over a dozen soldiers rushed out, guns raised, to secure a perimeter. Finally, an older soldier climbed down from the helicopter, and strode over to us.

‘Thomas Weber?’ this man asked of my Grandad.

‘Yes.’

‘Colonel Huber, Special Division,’ he introduced himself. ‘We got your message. Do you have any information on those already infected?’

‘No,’ Grandad lied, but I could see in his eyes that he thought of Hans.

‘OK, sir,’ the Colonel began.

‘No, wait-’ Grandad suddenly said, and pointed up the road towards the body that was lying in the street. ‘Just up there. They got at least one innocent already.’

The Colonel nodded - and turned to his men to order a squad of six up the street.

As they approached the house the man had fled from, a shape emerged in the doorway. In a flash, the shape charged towards the nearest soldier, screaming, knife raised in hand.

They were shot down in the street, lifeless body tumbling to the floor.

‘No!’ I shouted, horrified - and ran up the road towards the body, praying to a God that I’d never prayed to before that it wasn’t my cousin who had just been gunned down.

When I approached, I was both relieved that I didn’t recognise the corpse… and dismayed to realise that the condition had already spread.

‘Stay away, sir,’ one of the soldiers shouted at me. ‘We don’t know if there are any more!’

But I knew that there was. Hans, my cousin, was out there somewhere. If I didn’t find him before the army did, if I couldn’t fix him, then he was going to suffer the same fate as the man in front of me.