The 5th Wave (39 page)

THE WORLD IS SCREAMING.

Just the icy wind racing through the open hatch of the Black Hawk, but that’s what
it sounds like. At the height of the plague, when people were dying by the hundreds
every day, the panicky residents of Tent City would sometimes toss an unconscious
person into the fire by mistake, and you didn’t just hear their screams as they were
burned alive, you felt them like a punch to your heart.

Some things you can never leave behind. They don’t belong to the past. They belong
to you.

The world is screaming. The world is being burned alive.

Through the chopper windows, you can see the fires dotting the dark landscape, amber
blotches against the inky backdrop, multiplying as you near the outskirts of the city.
These aren’t funeral pyres. Lightning from summer storms started them, and the autumn
winds carried the smoldering embers to new feeding grounds, because there was so much
to eat, the pantry was stuffed. The world will burn for years. It will burn until
I’m my father’s age—if I live that long.

We’re skimming ten feet above treetop level, the rotors muffled by some kind of stealth
technology, approaching downtown Dayton from the north. A light snow is falling; it
shimmers around the fires below like golden halos, shedding light, illuminating nothing.

I turn from the window and see Ringer across the aisle, staring at me. She holds up
two fingers. I nod. Two minutes to the drop. I
pull the headband down to position the lens of the eyepiece over my left eye and adjust
the strap.

Ringer is pointing at Teacup, who’s in the chair next to me. Her eyepiece keeps slipping.
I tighten the strap; she gives me a thumbs-up, and something sour rises in my throat.
Seven years old. Dear Jesus. I lean over and shout in her ear, “You stay right next
to me, understand?”

Teacup smiles, shakes her head, points at Ringer.
I’m staying with her!
I laugh. Teacup’s no dummy.

Over the river now, the Black Hawk skimming only a few feet above the water. Ringer
is checking her weapon for the thousandth time. Beside her, Flintstone is tapping
his foot nervously, staring forward, looking at nothing.

There’s Dumbo inventorying his med kit, and Oompa bending his head in an attempt to
keep us from seeing him stuff one last candy bar into his mouth.

Finally, Poundcake with his head down, hands folded in his lap. Reznik named him Poundcake
because he said he was soft and sweet. He doesn’t strike me as either, especially
on the firing range. Ringer’s a better marksman overall, but I’ve seen Poundcake take
out six targets in six seconds.

Yeah, Zombie. Targets. Plywood cutouts of human beings. When it comes down to the
real deal, how will his aim be then? Or any of ours?

Unbelievable. We’re the vanguard. Seven kids who just six months ago were, well, just
kids; we’re the counterpunch to attacks that left seven billion dead.

There’s Ringer, staring at me again. As the chopper begins to descend, she unbuckles
her harness and steps across the aisle.
Places her hands on my shoulders and shouts in my face, “Remember the circle! We’re
not going to die!”

We dive into the drop zone fast and steep. The chopper doesn’t land; it hovers a few
inches above the frozen turf while the squad hops out. From the open hatchway, I look
over and see Teacup struggling with her harness. Then she’s loose and jumps out ahead
of me. I’m the last to go. In the cockpit, the pilot looks over his shoulder, gives
me a thumbs-up. I return the signal.

The Black Hawk rockets into the night sky, turning hard north, its black hull blending
quickly into the dark clouds until they swallow it, and it’s gone.

The air in the little park by the river has been blasted clear of snow by the rotors.
After the chopper leaves, the snow returns, spinning angrily around us. The sudden
quiet that follows the screaming wind is deafening. Straight ahead a huge human shadow
looms: the statue of a Korean War veteran. To the statue’s left is the bridge. Across
the bridge and ten blocks southwest is the old courthouse where several infesteds
have amassed a small arsenal of automatic weapons and grenade launchers, as well as
FIM-92 Stinger missiles, according to the Wonderland profile of one infested captured
in Operation Li’l Bo Peep. It’s the Stingers that brought us here. Our air capability
has been devastated by the attacks; it’s imperative we protect the few resources we
have left.

Our mission is twofold: Destroy or capture all enemy ordnance and terminate all infested
personnel.

Terminate with extreme prejudice.

Ringer’s on the point; she has the best eyes. We follow her past the stern-faced statue
onto the bridge; Flint, Dumbo, Oompa, Poundcake, and Teacup, with me covering our
rear. Weaving
through the stalled cars that seem to pop through a white curtain, covered in three
seasons’ worth of debris. Some have had their windows smashed, decorated with graffiti,
looted for any valuables, but what’s valuable anymore? Teacup scurrying along in front
of me on baby feet—she’s valuable. There’s my big takeaway from the Arrival. By killing
us, they showed us the idiocy of stuff. The guy who owned this BMW? He’s in the same
place as the woman who owned that Kia.

We pull up just shy of Patterson Boulevard, at the southern end of the bridge. Hunker
down beside the smashed front bumper of an SUV and survey the road ahead. The snow
cuts down our visibility to about half a block. This might take a while. I look at
my watch. Four hours till pickup back at the park.

A tanker truck has stalled out in the middle of the intersection twenty yards away,
blocking our view of the left-hand side of the street. I can’t see it, but I know
from the mission briefing there’s a four-story building on that side, a prime sentry
point if they wanted to keep an eye on the bridge. I motion for Ringer to keep to
the right as we leave the bridge, putting the truck between us and the building.

She pulls up sharply at the truck’s front bumper and drops to the ground. The squad
follows her lead, and I belly-scoot forward to join her.

“What do you see?” I whisper.

“Three of them, two o’clock.”

I squint through my eyepiece toward the building on the other side of the street.
Through the cottony fuzz of the snow, I see three green blobs of light bobbing along
the sidewalk, growing larger as they approach the intersection. My first thought is,
Holy crap,
these lenses actually work.
My second thought:
Holy crap, Teds, and they’re coming straight at us.

“Patrol?” I ask Ringer.

She shrugs. “Probably marked the chopper and they’re coming to check it out.” She’s
lying on her belly, holding them in her sights, waiting for the order to fire. The
green blobs grow larger; they’ve reached the opposite corner. I can barely make out
their bodies beneath the green beacons on top of their shoulders. It’s a weird, jarring
effect, as if their heads are engulfed in a spinning, iridescent green fire.

Not yet. If they start to cross, give the order.

Beside me, Ringer takes a deep breath, holds it, waits for my order patiently, like
she could wait for a thousand years. Snow settles on her shoulders, clings to her
dark hair. The tip of her nose is bright red. The moment drags out. What if there’s
more than three? If we announce our presence, it could bring a hundred of them down
on us from a dozen different hiding places. Engage or wait? I chew on my bottom lip,
working through the options.

“I’ve got them,” she says, misreading my hesitation.

Across the street, the green blobs of light are stationary, clustered together as
if locked in conversation. I can’t tell if they’re even facing this way, but I’m sure
they don’t know we’re here. If they did, they’d rush us, open fire, take cover, do
something. We have the element of surprise. And we have Ringer. Even if she misses
with the first shot, the follow-ups won’t. It’s an easy call, really.

So what’s stopping me from making it?

Ringer must be wondering the same thing, because she glances over at me and whispers,
“Zombie? What’s the call?”

There’s my orders:
Terminate all infested personnel.
There’s
my gut instinct:
Don’t rush. Don’t force the issue. Let it play out.
And there’s me, squeezed in the middle.

A heartbeat before our ears register the high-powered rifle’s report, the pavement
two feet in front of us disintegrates in a spray of dirty snow and pulverized concrete.
That resolves my dilemma fast. The words fly out as if snatched from my lungs by the
icy wind: “Take them.”

Ringer’s bullet smashes into one of the bobbing green lights, and the light winks
out. One light takes off to our right. Ringer swings the barrel toward my face. I
duck as she fires again, and the second light winks out. The third seems to shrink
as he tears up the street, heading back the way he came.

I jump to my feet. Can’t let him get away to sound the alarm. Ringer grabs my wrist
and yanks hard to bring me back down.

“Damn it, Ringer, what are you do—”

“It’s a trap.” She points at the six-inch scar in the concrete. “Didn’t you hear it?
It didn’t come from them. It came from over there.” She jerks her head toward the
building on the opposite side of the street. “From our left. And judging by the angle,
from high up, maybe the roof.”

I shake my head. A fourth infested on the roof? How did he know we were here—and why
didn’t he warn the others? We’re hidden behind the truck, which means he must have
spotted us on the bridge—spotted us and held his fire until we were blocked from view
and there was no way he could hit us. It didn’t make sense.

And Ringer goes, like she’s read my mind, “I guess this is what they meant by ‘the
fog of war.’”

I nod. Things are getting way too complicated way too fast.

“How’d he see us cross?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Night vision, has to be.”

“Then we’re screwed.” Pinned down. Beside several thousands of gallons of gasoline.
“He’ll take out the truck.”

Ringer shrugs. “Not with a bullet, he won’t. That only works in the movies, Zombie.”
She looks at me. Waiting for my call.

Along with the rest of the squad. I glance behind me. Their eyes look back at me,
big and bug-eyed in the snowy dark. Teacup is either freezing to death or shaking
with complete terror. Flint is scowling, and the only one to speak up and let me know
what the rest are thinking: “Trapped. We abort now, right?”

Tempting, but suicidal. If the sniper on the roof doesn’t take us down on the retreat,
the reinforcements that must be coming will.

Retreating is not an option. Advancing is not an option. Staying put is not an option.
There are no options.

Run = die. Stay = die.

“Speaking of night vision,” Ringer growls, “they might have thought of that before
dropping us on a night mission. We’re totally blind out here.”

I stare at her.
Totally blind. Bless you, Ringer.
I order the squad to close ranks around me and whisper, “Next block, right-hand side,
attached to the back side of the office building, there’s a parking garage.” Or at
least there should be, according to the map. “Get up to the third floor. Buddy system:
Flint with Ringer, Poundcake with Oompa, Dumbo with Teacup.”

“What about you?” Ringer asks. “Where’s your buddy?”

“I don’t need a buddy,” I answer. “I’m a freaking zombie.”

Here comes the smile. Wait for it.

57

I POINT OUT the embankment leading down to the water’s edge. “All the way down to
that walking trail,” I say to Ringer. “And don’t wait for me.” She shakes her head,
frowning. I lean in, keeping my expression as serious as I can. “I thought I had you
with the zombie remark. One of these days, I’m going to get a smile out of you, Private.”

Very much not smiling. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“You have something against smiling?”

“It was the first thing to go.” Then the snow and the dark swallow her. The rest of
the squad follows. I can hear Teacup whimpering beneath her breath as Dumbo leads
her off, going, “Run hard when it goes, Cup, okay?”