The atmosphere is rank and oppressive. In the air there is a smell of rotted flesh decades old. Small smooth white animal bones are scattered on the floor. The darkness is absolute. No human has set foot here for over three hundred years, until tonight. The rock floor I sleep on is cold and does not make good bedding. This is good. It means that I am in a light sleep, where I am more easily awakened. The gun that I sleep with - always - is loaded. I dream of nothing. Everything is silent. No movement.

"Look - there's a way in here."

My eyes remain closed but I am now fully awake. The voice came from my left, to the entrance of the cave, an entrance I had thought hidden but evidently not, male, quiet. My gun is silently loaded and held with stoic hands.

"Do you think they're here?"

"Might as well check. Footprints outside, going in, not comin' out."

This new voice sounds like it comes from an older man. It has an edge of hard-earned age to it. The leader? Now on my belly, aiming the gun in the vague direction of the voices, sweating slightly, I hear the murmurs and scuffles of movement. Whoever they are, they are coming.

"Shit, look here. Cigarettes. Spread out, people. Check the corners."

I must have forgotten to pick one up. Now I was going to have to pay the price for it. There were certainly more than two people. At least four sets of footsteps. Smaller than average for a group like this, but it happens. Suddenly, footsteps behind me: how did they move so quickly?: it's dark, they can't see me: I have the advantage. The serrated knife in my pocket comes out: a second to judge distances: a quick plunge, directly into the left lung. Whoever they are, they try to scream. They can't and tumble to the floor instead, making a thud.

"What was that?"

"Hey - hey - Max, what happened? Max?"

The dying man on the floor actually tries to respond but the effort just causes more blood to pool out. He wretches.

"Everyone, he's here, he got Max! Get the fucker!"

I'm trying to stay calm. I think they're begin to close in on me, it's hard to differentiate between voices when they're all so close -

"Someone, get a fuckin' light!"

- and now my one real advantage is going to be taken away. Time to act. Pull up the gun, aim somewhere to my right, location of the closest voice, just as they pull out what looks to be a torch of some kind - they have batteries? – and they're dead, or close enough, I think it hit their neck. The torch goes spinning to the floor, its light passing for a few seconds on another face, scared and confused, before it crashes against the cave's floor and dims out. I don't think they saw me, though. Now I stand up and start to move. I have a mental map of this place and they don't. Staying in one spot for too long would be suicide. After a few metres I stop. Everyone's silent now. I realise I left my knife behind, still dripping. Then there's yet another voice, from the person who I haven't heard speak before. It's the voice of – a kid? 16 at the most and scared out of their mind, almost on the edge of tears.

"B-boss?"

"Shut your fuckin' mouth... quiet... get your torch out." replies who I assume must be the leader of this little group. He's standing almost directly in front of me, probably staring right into my eyes and not even knowing it. I make a concerted effort to stop breathing. There are footsteps. The boss is walking towards me. I can hear the kid fumbling around, trying to get the light out. A quiet scrape as the boss drags his feet very slowly across the rocks. He's so close that I could reach out and grab his neck. Instead I lift up the gun, still not breathing. If he came a step closer his skull would bang into the end of the gun. The kid stops fumbling, he's managed to bring out the touch.

"OK, boss, I've got it -"

First thing we both see in the new amber light is the top of the man's skull rip apart and fragment into small chunks of meat, covered with hair now matted by blood. Got the fucker's eye, I think. Never saw me, not once.

"Shit! Shit!" the kid almost drops the torch but instead shines it directly on me, strangely. You think he'd turn it off and run. But instead he just stands there like a lamb. Doesn't even move as I sprint over, hit him in the stomach with the butt of the gun, rip the torch out of his hands and belt him over the head with it. Yelps and sinks down to the floor. Gun in one hand, torch in the other, I stand over him. I was right, about 16. To my relief he's breathing. I don't like killing kids when I don't have to. One of his ears has been cut off. Sawed off, looks like. There's a tiny half-broken pistol in his pocket that I quickly steal away. His breathing's arrhythmic, shot to hell. Must be having one hell of a dream. If he's dreaming. And there I am, standing over this bandit kid, covered in the blood of the people who were probably his only friends. What a sight. I pull out a cigarette from one of my pockets, light it with shaking hands and just stand there, not smoking it.