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seconds later, the
knife fell at my side and stuck into the dirt.
    Blood dripped down the blade.
    It was not mine.
    I looked up.
    The mad soldier was holding the side of his
neck, like a mosquito had bitten him.
    He was confused.
    He took his hand away. Blood spurted out in a
huge red arc, spraying the desert ground. He looked at his hand. It
was completely red. And then his head snapped backwards. Suddenly
and violently.
    And he fell to the ground.
    I looked back to the horizon. The dark blob was
getting closer. I realized the mad soldier had been shot in the
head. It was an expert shot. By a marksman. A sniper.
    Kenji?
    The shape moved closer.
    It was a man.
    A man with a gun. A rifle. It had to be Kenji,
I thought.
    It had to be.
    The shadow moved closer, coming for
me.
    It was a man. A Large man. Wide.
Tall.
    It was not Kenji.
    It was Ben.
     

Chapter 9
    Ben cut me free with the mad soldier’s hunting knife, saving my
life for the second time. I tried to thank him but he just ignored
me.
    “ I mean it,” I said. “I really am
grateful. I don’t know how to repay you. I don’t think I’ll ever be
able to repay you.”
    “ My father once told me that you
should do things for people that they can never pay you back for,”
Ben said. “You should do these things as often as possible.” He
paused, as if remembering something. “Besides, I just happened to
be in the right place at the right time. Don’t thank me. Thank your
lucky stars. And this guy was obviously a psycho. Pushed over the
edge.”
    “ So what the hell are you even doing
here? What happened back at the outpost? Have you seen
Kenji?”
    “ I’m here because I’m pissed off.
I’m here for my revenge. It’s selfish really.”
    “ What?”
    “ The people in charge. They took
something from me.”
    “ What did they take?”
    “ My life. My freedom.”
    Ben knelt down over the mad soldier and
relieved him of his shotgun. He also took his sidearm and several
magazines of ammunition. He handed me one for my rifle. He threw
away the hunting rifle he had used to shoot the soldier with. It
was out of ammo. His movements were slow but methodical, almost
mechanical, like he was working and moving on autopilot or
something. I noticed that Ben did not look good at all. He looked
pale and weak. I had to remind myself that he had been unconscious
back at the outpost. He had undergone emergency surgery to remove a
bullet from his chest. He was obviously not fully
recovered.
    He continued to search the pockets of the dead
soldier, picking him clean. In the soldier’s vest he found a couple
of energy bars.
    “ Here, eat this,” he said as he
handed me one of the bars. “Don’t know when we will get another
chance to eat.”
    I took the energy bar. But I wasn’t hungry. I
still felt sick. “How did you get out?” I asked again. “What
happened back at the outpost? Did Kenji make it out?”
    “ Don't know. I woke up. Pain in my
chest. Heard the alarm. I got out of there. You get a feeling in
your gut. A cold, sinking, awful feeling. You come to trust that
feeling. Trust it with your life.”
    “ So you don’t know where Kenji is?
You don’t know where he went? You don’t know if he made it
out?”
    “ No. I’m sorry. The place was
abandoned. I heard the alarm. I got the hell out of there. I
figured you people had done the same.”
    “ We came back for you. We wouldn’t
just leave you.”
    “ Whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’s in
the past.”
    “ How did you get here? How did you
find us?”
    “ I just followed the tracks. Same as
you, I guess. I wasn’t looking for you.”
    “ Oh.”
    The mad soldier also had an automatic rifle
slung over his back. It was similar to the one I was carrying. I
picked it up and offered it to Ben. But he didn’t want
it.
    “ Don’t like automatic weapons. They
jam. I’ll stick with the shotgun. It’s got plenty of stopping
power. And I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need stopping
power.”
    “ We