MIDMORNING, DOWNTOWN URBANA, under a cloudless sky, the temperature in the midforties. You can feel it coming. Spring.
Zombie and Constance rush into the coffee shop while I cover the street. From the doorway, I hear Zombie’s startled cry, and then he’s skittering back to me across the treacherous coffee-bean-covered floor.
“What?”
He pushes past me and lurches onto the street, whipping right, then left, then back again. Constance comes over and says, “Apparently the kid’s gone.”
In the middle of Main Street, Zombie throws back his head and howls Dumbo’s name. As if in mockery, the echo ricochets back at him.
I trot over to his side. “Screaming probably isn’t a good idea, Zombie.”
His response is a wide-eyed, uncomprehending stare. Then he turns and races down the street, calling his name over and over, Dumbo! Dumbo! and Dumbo, you dumbass, where are you? He loops back to us after a couple of blocks, out of breath and shaking with panic.
“Somebody took him.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“You’re right, I don’t. Thanks for the reality check, Ringer. He probably got up and ran all the way to the safe house, except for the inconvenient fact that he was shot in the back.”
I ignore the sarcasm. “I don’t think anyone took him, Zombie.”
He laughs. “That’s right. I forgot. You’re the one with the answers. Come on, the suspense is killing me. What happened to Dumbo, Ringer?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “But I don’t think anyone took him because there’s nobody left to do the taking. Your cat lady would have seen to that.”
I start off down the street. He watches me for a few seconds, then shouts at my back, “Where the hell are you going?”
“The safe house, Zombie. Didn’t you say it was south on Highway 68?”
“Unbelievable!” He erupts in a torrent of curses. I keep walking. Then he shouts: “What the hell happened to you out here, anyway? Where’s the Ringer who told me that everyone matters?”
“Mean,” Constance whispers to him. I hear her clearly. “I told you.”
I keep walking.
Five minutes later, I find Dumbo crumpled at the base of a barricade that stretches from sidewalk to sidewalk across Main. That he made it this far—nearly ten blocks from where he was hit—is extraordinary. I kneel beside him and press my fingers against his neck. I whistle loudly. When Zombie comes sprinting to the scene, he’s out of breath and ready to collapse. So is Constance, except her exhaustion is an act.
“How the hell did he get here?” Zombie wonders aloud. He looks around wildly.
“The only way he could,” I answer. “He crawled.”
34
ZOMBIE DOESN’T ASK why Dumbo would drag himself ten blocks in great pain and with a bullet in his back. He doesn’t ask because he knows the answer. Dumbo wasn’t fleeing danger or looking for help: Dumbo was looking for his sarge.
It’s more than Zombie can handle. He falls against the side of the barricade, gulping air, his face lifted up to the sky. Lost, found, dead, alive, the cycle repeats; there’s no escape, there’s no reprieve. Zombie closes his eyes and waits for his breath to slow, his heart to steady. A small break before it begins again: the next loss, the next death.
It’s always been this way, I wanted to tell him. We bear the unbearable. We endure the unendurable. We do what must be done until we ourselves are undone.
I scooch next to Dumbo and lift up his shirt. The bandage is soaked. The packing beneath the bandage is saturated. If he wasn’t bleeding out before, he is now. I press my hand onto his ashen cheek. His skin is cool, but I am going deeper than the skin. I am going into him. Beside me, Constance watches; she knows what I’m doing.
“Is it too late?” she whispers.
Dumbo feels me inside him. His eyelids flutter, his lips part, and breath roils from his open mouth. In the dwindling twilight of his consciousness, a question, an aching need. I go where you go.
“Zombie,” I murmur. “Say something to him.”
To live, Dumbo would need a massive blood transfusion. He won’t get one.
But he didn’t crawl ten blocks in blistering pain for that. That isn’t why he held on.
“Tell him he made it, Zombie. Tell him he found you.”
There is a light that glimmers along the darkening edge of an infinite horizon. In that light the heart finds what the heart seeks. In that light, Dumbo goes where his beloved Zombie goes. In that light, a boy named Ben Parish finds his baby sister. In that light, Marika saves a little girl called Teacup. In that light are promises kept, dreams realized, time redeemed.
And Zombie’s voice, speeding Dumbo toward the light: “You made it, Private. You found me.”
No darkness slamming down. No endless fall into lightlessness. All was light when I felt Dumbo’s soul break the horizon.
Lost, found, and all was light.
35
ZOMBIE
I WON’T LEAVE Dumbo to rot where he fell. I won’t leave him for the rats and the crows and the blowflies. I will not burn him, either. I will not abandon his bones to be picked over and scattered by vultures and vermin.
I will dig a grave for him in the cold, stubborn earth. I will bury his med kit with him, but no rifle. Dumbo was not a killer; he was a healer. He saved my life twice. No, three times. I have to count his telling Ringer where to shoot me that night in Dayton.
There are dozens of faded flags stuck throughout the barricade. I will mark his grave with them. The fabric will fade to white. The wooden dowels will fall and slowly decay. Or, if Walker fails to blow up the mothership, the bombs that are coming will leave nothing behind—no flags, no grave, no Dumbo.
Then the earth will settle and grass will grow over my friend, covering him in a blanket of vivid green.
“Zombie, there’s no time,” Ringer informs me.
“There’s time for this.”
She doesn’t put up another argument. I’m sure there are about twelve she could whip out, but she holds back.
It’s past noon by the time I’m finished. Dear Christ, it’s turned into a beautiful goddamned day. We sit by the mound of freshly turned dirt and I pull out the rest of my power bars to share. Ringer takes a few tiny bites, then shoves the rest into her jacket pocket.
“The rabbit?” I ask.
She grunts a nonanswer. The woman named Constance gobbles down her bar. Speaking of rabbits: Her eyes dart around like one’s, nose twitching as if she’s sniffing the air for danger. Dumbo’s rifle lies on the ground beside her. She refused to take it at first. Said she had a problem with guns. Like, for real? How’d she live this long?
The other odd thing: Father Silencer had said something very similar about guns—right before Constance blew his head off with mine.
“Anybody want to say something?” I ask.
“I hardly knew him,” Ringer answers.
“I didn’t know him at all,” Constance says. Maybe she thinks that sounded harsh, because she adds, “Poor thing.”
“He was from Pittsburgh. He loved the Packers. Video games. He was a gamer.” I took a breath. Damn. Didn’t seem like much. Nothing, really. “Call of Duty. Borderline MLG.”
And Ringer goes, “Irony.”
“I’m sure he was a very sweet boy,” Constance chimes in.
I shake my head. “I didn’t even know his real name.” Then to Ringer: “It’s just you and me now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Squad 53. We’re the last.” I snap my fingers. “Christ, I forgot Nugget. Three, then. Who would have thought it, huh, back in the day? That it’d be down to the three of us. Well, I would have put my money on you. Not that money means anything anymore. Or my judgment. Nugget, Jesus, that kid’s indestructible. But me? Never. Never in a million years. I should have died so man
y times, I’ve lost count.”
“You’re here for a purpose.” Constance leans toward me and points at my chest. “There’s a special place in his plan for you.”
“Whose plan? Vosch’s?”
“God’s!” She looks at Ringer, then back at me. “A place for all of us.”
I’m looking at the mound of dirt at my feet. “What was his place? What purpose did God have for Dumbo? Take the bullet for me so I could get on to my purpose, whatever the hell that is?”
“I think you’re right, Zombie,” Ringer says. “It doesn’t have meaning. It’s just luck.”
“Right. Luck. His bad. My good. Like stumbling onto Constance hiding in that pit and then you stumbling into both of us.”
“Yes. Like that.” Blank-faced.
“Talk about beating the odds. You know what it’s like, Ringer?”
“What is it like, Zombie?” Her voice, too—blank, without inflection, without emotion.
“One of those no way moments in movies. You know what I’m talking about. The thing that makes you shake your head and go no way. The good guys showing up in the nick of time. The bad guys suddenly getting a case of the stupids. Ruins it for you. Wrecks it all to shit. The real world doesn’t work that way.”
“It’s the movies, Zombie,” Ringer says. Holding herself very still. She knows where this is going. She knows. I’ve never met anyone smarter. Or scarier. Something about this girl scares the living crap out of me. Always has, from the first day I saw her in camp, watching me do knuckle push-ups in the yard until the blood pooled beneath my hands. The way she looks at you, flaying you open like a fish on the cutting block. And cold. Not the cold of a walk-in freezer or the cold of this never-ending fucking winter. The cold of dry ice. The cold that burns.
“Oh, the movies!” Constance cries softly. “How I miss the movies!”
I’ve had enough. I am done. I level my sidearm at Constance’s head.
“Touch that rifle and I will kill you. Move one inch and you will die.”
36
THE WOMAN’S MOUTH drops open. Her hands fly to her chest. She starts to say something and I hold up my free hand.
“And no talking. Talking will also get you killed.” To Ringer, but keeping my eye on Constance: “You can come clean now. Who is this person?”
“I told you, Zombie—”
“You’re good at a lot of things, Ringer, but you suck at lying. Something’s seriously twisted here. Tell me what it is and I won’t waste her.”
“I’m being honest. You can trust her.”
“The last person I trusted threw cat stew in my face.”
“Then don’t trust her. Trust me.”
I look at her. Blank face, dead eyes, and the coldness that burns.
“Zombie, I would never lie to you,” Ringer says. “Without Constance, I wouldn’t have made it through the winter.”
“Yeah, tell me how you did that. Tell me how you survived an entire winter in the most obvious hiding place inside a Silencer’s territory without freezing to death, starving to death, or getting knifed to death. Tell me.”
“Because I know what needs to be done.”
“Huh? What the hell does that even mean?”
“I swear to you, Zombie, she’s okay. She’s one of us.”
The gun is shaking. That’s because my hand is. I bring up the other to support my wrist.
Constance is giving Ringer a look. “Marika.”
“Okay, now that’s another thing!” I shout. “You would never tell her your name, not in a million years. Shit, you wouldn’t even tell me.”
Ringer slides into the space between me and Constance. Her eyes are not so dead now, her face not so masklike. I’ve seen the look once before, in Dayton, when she whispered, Ben, we’re the 5th Wave, determined to convince me, desperate for me to believe.
“How do you know she’s one of us, Ringer?” I ask. Well, more like beg. “How can you know?”
“Because I’m alive,” she answers. She holds out her hand.
The safest thing—for me, for her, for the people I left behind in the safe house—is to ignore Ringer and kill the stranger. I have no choice. Which means I have no responsibility. I can’t be blamed for following the rules that the enemy set down.
“Step aside, Ringer.”
She shakes her head. Her dark bangs slide back and forth. “Not going to happen, Sergeant.”
Her dark unblinking eyes, her mouth firmly set, her whole body leaning toward me, and her hand waiting for the weapon that quivers in mine. I risked everything to rescue her and damn if she isn’t risking it to save me.
The Others have loosed more than one kind of Silencer on the world, more than one kind of infested. I feel him inside me, the one who would rip my soul in two. And they didn’t need to come a gazillion light-years to bring him here. He’s always been there, inside, the Silencer Within.
“What’s happening to us, Ringer?”
She nods: She knows exactly where I’m coming from. Always has.
“We still have a choice,” she answers. “They want us to believe we don’t, but it’s a lie, Zombie. Their biggest one.”
Behind her, Constance whimpers, “I am human.”
That’s how it’ll go down. Those will be the last words of the last one left. I am human.
“I don’t even know what that means anymore,” I say to Ringer, to myself, to nobody at all.
But I drop the gun into Ringer’s open hand.
37
SAM
THE FRONT DOOR flew open and Cassie lunged in from the porch, holding her rifle.
“Sam! Quick, go wake up Evan. Someone’s—”
He didn’t wait for the rest. He raced down the hall to Evan’s room. Zombie had come back; Sam was sure of it.
Evan wasn’t asleep. He was sitting up in bed, staring at the ceiling.
“What is it, Sam?”
“Zombie’s back.”
Evan shook his head. How could that be? Then he slid from the bed, grabbed his rifle, and followed Sam down the hall and into the living room.
And Cassie was saying, “What do you mean, Dumbo’s gone?”
There was Zombie and Ringer and a stranger in the room with Cassie. Dumbo wasn’t there. Teacup wasn’t there.
“He’s dead,” Ringer answered, and Sam asked, “Teacup, too?” And Ringer nodded. Teacup, too.
Behind him, Evan Walker asked, “Who is this?” He was talking about the stranger, a blond older lady with a nice face, about the age of Sam’s mother when she died.
“She’s with me,” Ringer said. “She’s okay.”
The lady was looking at Sam. She was smiling. “My name is Constance. And you must be Sam. Private Nugget. It’s very nice to meet you.”
She held out her hand. His daddy taught him to always shake hands firmly. A good, strong grip, Sam my man, but don’t squeeze too hard.
The smiling lady did, though—very hard. She yanked Sam into her chest, wrapping an arm around his neck, and then he felt the end of a gun pressing against his temple.
38
“THIS IS GOING to go smooth and easy,” the lady yelled over the jumbled-up shouts of Zombie and Cassie. “Smooth and easy.”
Zombie was looking at Ringer, who was looking at Evan Walker, and Cassie was looking at Ringer, too, and then his sister said, “You bitch.”
“Weapons, over there,” the lady said. Her voice still had a smile in it. “Stack ’em by the fireplace. Now.”
They disarmed, one by one. Cassie said, “Don’t hurt him.”
“Nobody’s getting hurt, sweetheart,” the lady said, smiley-voiced. “Where’s the other one?”
“The other what?” Cassie asked.
“Human. There’s one more. Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you
’re—”
“Cassie,” Evan Walker said. But he was looking over Sam’s head at the lady’s face. “Go get Megan.”
He saw his sister mouth to Evan Walker, Do something.
Evan Walker shook his head no.
“She won’t come out of her room,” Cassie said.
“Maybe she’ll change her mind if you tell her I’m going to blow your little brother’s brains out.”
Zombie’s face was pale and caked in dried blood, so he looked like a real zombie. “That’s not going to happen,” Zombie said. “So what now?”
“Then she shoots Nugget and keeps shooting people until Megan comes out,” Ringer said. “Zombie, trust me on this.”
“Oh, sure,” Cassie said. “Terrific idea. Let’s all trust Ringer.”
“She’s not here to hurt anyone,” Ringer said. “But she will if she has to. Tell them, Constance.”
“Me,” Evan Walker said. “You’ve come for me, haven’t you?”
“The girl first,” Constance said. “Then we talk.”
Cassie said, “That’s fine. Talking’s one of my favorite things. But first maybe you could let my little brother go . . . take me instead?” Cassie’s hands were up and she was putting on her fake smile. It wasn’t a good fake smile. You could always tell when she was faking, because she didn’t look friendly; she looked like she was going to throw up.
The lady’s arm like an iron bar pressing against his windpipe, hard to breathe now, and something else pressing against the small of his back, his special secret, nobody knew, not Zombie or even Cassie, and not this lady, either.
Sam slipped his hand behind his back, into the space between him and Constance.
He was a soldier. He had forgotten his ABCs but he remembered the lessons of combat. Your squad before God, that’s what they taught him. He could remember only the vaguest outline of his mother’s face, but he knew their faces, Dumbo’s and Teacup’s, Poundcake’s and Oompa’s and Flintstone’s. His squad. His brothers and sisters. He couldn’t recall the name of his school or what the street he lived on looked like. Those things and the hundred other forever-gone things didn’t matter anymore. Only one thing mattered now, the cry of the firing range and the obstacle course rising from the throats of his squad: No mercy ever!