"Won't 'they' come out? The things?"

"Stalkers." I said.

"That's what they're called?"

I nodded. "That'd be the dictionary term, if someone out there was still printing them. Truth is I don't know if they’ll come out here. But I think we're good for miles on either side - there's nothing here but fields. Stalkers stick near towns and villages where they know there are people.”

Justin tilted his head to the side. "What are they?"

I swallowed. I didn’t want to spend time thinking about the stalkers. "Don't ask. Just if we ever see one, for god’s sake do what I say."

A few hours later the woods were cloaked in darkness. Somewhere in the tree above me a bird shuffled in its nest, and aside from that the only sound was the regular chirp of crickets. A breeze blew cold on my cheeks, and with it came the smell of spring onions from a patch that must have been growing nearby. The sky was so black that I couldn't see whether it was cloudy or not, though the absence of stars wasn't a good sign. The last thing we needed when we didn't have shelter was for it to start raining. I'd spent some long, wet nights out in the open over the last few years, and I didn't plan to spend many more if I could help it.

Justin had his back against a log that was led horizontally on the forest floor. The middle of it was hollow and looked like it had been chewed by something, but the hole wasn't big enough to get inside. I rested my body against a tree, but I kept my mind alert. It felt good to sit down. I could actually feel the tiredness seeping out of me; it was like a warm energy that drained from my limbs. It was a good feeling, but it would have been even better would be to get some sleep.

 I looked over at the kid. He had his eyes focussed on his hands, and he seemed to be picking dirt from underneath his fingernails. Could I trust him to keep watch tonight, I wondered? I really needed to get some shut eye, even if it was just for an hour, but I didn't want to go to sleep and leave the kid watching out for me.

No, I couldn't do it. No matter how scratchy and red my eyes were, no matter how much my shoulders felt like a weight crushing me down, I couldn't sleep while he sat watch. I was just going to have to snatch ten minutes here and there when it was light. My body ached at the thought of the next morning, of another day of hiking on tired limbs.

"Justin," I said.

He looked up. His eyes were puffy. "Yeah?"

"You should get some sleep."

He put his hands on his lap. "How long've you been out here Kyle?"

"Don’t talk, just go to sleep. I'll keep watch."

Justin put his bag in front of him then led his head on it. He wrapped his green raincoat round his body and tucked it tight up to his chin. It only took fifteen minutes, and then he was out for the count. As the kid lightly snored the night away, I began to wonder how we were going to cope for the next few hundred miles. He wanted to experience what it was like out here in the wild, in the real world, but he had no idea whatsoever how to live in it. If we were going to make it to the farm without further incident, then I was going to have to teach him how to survive.

The fact was, as soon as we reached the farm he was on his own, and whether he decided to carry on living in the wilds or he decided to go back to Vasey, he was going to have to do it independently. I knew I would never buckle from the decision to leave him, but I could at least prepare him better for when the time came.

The night sky reached its peak of darkness and the visibility in the forest was less than a couple of metres. The temperate had plummeted, so I zipped up my coat and tucked my chin inside. In a way I was thankful for it, because the cold helped keep me alert.

Despite having potential hypothermia as an ally, though, my eyelids were starting to feel heavy. My head was light, my body drained of energy, my eyes closing. I struggled to keep them open as my brain coaxed me into a soft sleep, and soon I felt myself surrendering against the feeling.

                                                        ***

I opened my eyes. My brain felt fuzzy from the sleep I had just accidentally taken. Somewhere to my right, I heard something crunch. I felt my face drain of blood, and one word automatically leapt into my brain: Stalker.

My shoulders went tight and my hands were clammy, but I took a deep breath, held it in and tried to control myself. I looked at Justin. The only movement coming from him was the rise and fall of his chest. I turned my head to the right and listened intently. If it was a stalker, it probably wouldn't make another noise, I knew. There were two possibilities: either it had caught our scent and it was working its way toward us, in which case the first we would know about it would be when it tore one of us apart. The second possibility was that it was a lone infected, just another corpse shambling through the forest.

Please be an infected, I thought.

Justin stirred. No, I thought, don't wake up. That would be the worst damn timing ever. To my right there was another crunch, and the sound of something dragging. I stared as intently as I could but my eyes couldn't puncture the thick curtain of darkness. Whatever it was could be metres away, and we wouldn't have the slightest idea. I looked up at the sky. Never in my life had I wished more for a little bit of moonlight.

Justin moved again. I got to my knees and crawled toward him as quietly as I could, taking care to brush my path for any twigs that could snap underneath me. When I reached him, he was waking up. He mumbled something unintelligible, and then shoved the rain coat off his chest. He was about to sit up when I put my hand firmly on his chest, pushed him down and put my hand over his mouth.

"Don't make a sound. There's something out there, but I don't know what and I don't have a clue where it is," I whispered.

I moved my hand away from his mouth. Justin quietly sat up. He looked around him, but he could see about as much as I could. His eyes were squinting into the darkness.

"Stalker?" he said.

I listened again. I could hear the dragging sound, but it seemed to be going further away. I let out a breath and felt a wave of relief. This was no stalker, and if it was, it was a pretty damn bad one. At any rate, whatever was out there was moving away from us. What worried me more though was falling asleep while on watch. That was dangerous for both us.

"Talk to me about something," I said to Justin.

He straightened up and rubbed his eyes. "You actually want to talk to me?"

I nodded. "Got to keep awake somehow, unless you got some coffee tucked away somewhere."

"What should we talk about?"

"You got a water bottle?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Pass it here then."

I took a big drink, letting the first few gulps of the cold water take care of my thirst. I sloshed another gulp round my mouth to clear the dryness. I spat it out onto the forest floor. "Ask me a question," I told him.

Out in the distance, the dragging sound got even fainter. "What happened to your wife?" Justin asked.

It was like a sucker-punch in the stomach. I'd expected him to ask something light and easy, but instead he'd gone straight in for the big question.

 "Not about me," I said. "You wanted to know about the world and what it’s like living without Vasey’s walls Well, I’ve lived out here almost as long as you’ve been alive. So ask me about it."

He cleared his throat. "Why do you let some of the infected walk away? How come you don't kill all of them?

I sat back against the tree trunk. There was something sticking out from it into my back, but I didn't move. The uncomfortable sensation made it easier to stay awake.