The Infinite Sea (16 page)

32

I PICKED UP
Dumbo’s rifle and pushed it into the kid’s chest.

“We’re blind,” I told him. “Stairway, both hall windows, east-side rooms, west-side rooms, keep moving and keep your eyes open. I’ll stay here with the alpha males and try to keep them from killing each other.”

Dumbo was nodding like he understood, but he wasn’t moving. I put my hands on his shoulders and focused on his jiggly eyes. “Step up, Dumbo. Understand? Step up.”

He jerked his head up and down, a human PEZ dispenser, and slumped out of the room. Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do, but we’d been at that point for a long time now, the point of doing the last thing we wanted to do.

Behind me, Ben growled, “Why didn’t you shoot him in the head? Why the knee?”

“Poetic justice,” I muttered. I sat next to Evan. I could see his eyes quivering behind the lids. He had been dead. I’d said good-bye. Now he was alive and I might not be able to say hello.
We’re only about four miles from Camp Haven, Evan. What took you so long?

“We can’t stay here,” Ben announced. “It was a bad call sending Ringer ahead. I knew we shouldn’t’ve split up. We’re bugging out of here in the morning.”

“How are we going to do that?” I asked. “You’re hurt. Evan is—”

“This isn’t about him,” Ben said. “Well, I guess it is to you—”

“He’s the reason you’re alive right now to bitch, Parish.”

“I’m not bitching.”

“Yes, you are. You’re bitching like a junior miss beauty queen.”

Sammy laughed. I don’t think I’d heard my brother laugh since our mother died. It startled me, like finding a lake in the middle of a desert.

“Cassie called you a bitch,” Sam informed Ben, in case he missed it.

Ben ignored him. “We waited here for him and now we’re trapped here because of him. Do what you want, Sullivan. In the morning, I’m out of here.”

“Me too!” Sams said.

Ben got up, leaned on the side of the bed for a minute to catch his breath, then hobbled to the door. Sam trailed after him, and I didn’t try to stop either one of them. What would be the point? Ben cracked the door and called softly to Dumbo not to shoot him—he was coming out to help. Then Evan and I were alone.

I sat on the bed Ben had just abandoned. It was still warm from his body. I grabbed Sammy’s bear and pulled it into my lap.

“Can you hear me?” I asked—Evan, not the bear. “Guess we’re even now, huh? You shoot me in the knee; I shoot you in the knee. You see me butt naked; I see you butt naked. You pray over me; I—”

The room swam out of focus. I took Bear and popped Evan in the chest with it.

“And what was with that ridiculous jacket you were wearing? The Pinheads, that’s about right. That nails it.” I hit him again. “Pinhead.” Again. “Pinhead.” Again. “And now you’re going to check out on me? Now?”

His lips moved and a word leaked out slowly, like air escaping from a tire.

“Mayfly.”

33

HIS EYES OPENED.
When I recalled writing about their warm, melted chocolateness, something in me went
gah.
Why did he have this knees-to-jelly effect on me? That wasn’t me. Why did I let him kiss and cuddle and generally mope around after me like a forlorn little lost alien puppy? Who was this guy? From what warped version of reality did he transport into my own personal warped version of reality? None of it fit. None of it made sense. Falling in love with me might be like me falling in love with a cockroach, but what do you call my reaction to him? What’s that called?

“If you weren’t dying and all, I’d tell you to go to hell.”

“I’m not dying, Cassie.” Fluttery lids. Sweaty face. Shaky voice.

“Okay, then go to hell. You left me, Evan. In the dark, just like that, and then you blew up the ground beneath me. You could have killed all of us. You abandoned me right when—”

“I came back.”

He reached out his hand. “Don’t touch me.”
None of your creepy Vulcan mind-meld tricks.

“I kept my promise,” he whispered.

Well, what snarky comeback did I have for that? A promise was what brought me to him in the beginning. Again I was struck by how really weird it was that he was where I had been and I was where he had been. His promise for mine. My bullet for his. Down to stripping each other naked because there’s no choice; clinging to modesty in the age of the Others is like sacrificing a goat to make it rain.

“You almost got shot in the head, moron,” I told him. “It didn’t occur to you to just shout up the stairs, ‘Hey, it’s me! Hold your fire!’?”

He shook his head. “Too risky.”

“Oh, right. Much more risky than chancing your head getting blown off. Where’s Teacup? Where’s Poundcake?”

He shook his head again.
Who?

“The little girl who took off down the highway. The big kid who chased after her. You must have seen them.”

Now he nodded. “North.”

“Well, I know which direction they went . . .”

“Don’t go after them.”

That brought me up short. “What do you mean?”

“It isn’t safe.”

“Nowhere is safe, Evan.”

His eyes were rolling back in his head. He was passing out. “There’s Grace.”

“What did you say? Grace? As in ‘Amazing Grace’ or what? What’s that mean, ‘There’s grace’?”

“Grace,” he murmured, and then he slipped away.

34

I STAYED WITH HIM
till dawn. Sitting with him like he sat with me in the old farmhouse. He brought me to that place against my will and then my will brought him to this place, and maybe that meant we sort of owned each other. Or owed each other. Anyway, no debt is ever fully repaid, not really, not the ones that really matter.
You saved me,
he said, and back then I didn’t understand what I had saved him from. That was before he told me the truth about who he was, and afterward I thought he meant I had saved him from that whole human genocide, mass-murderer thing. Now I was thinking he didn’t mean I saved him from anything, but
for
something. The tricky part, the unanswerable part, the part that scared the crap out of me, was what that something might be.

He moaned in his sleep. His fingers clawed at the covers. Delirious.
Been there and done that, too, Evan.
I took his hand. Burned and bruised and broken, and I had wondered what took him so long to find me? He must have crawled here. His hand was hot; his face shone with sweat. For the first time it occurred to me that Evan Walker might die—so soon, too, after rising from the dead.

“You’re going to live,” I told him. “You have to live. Promise, Evan. Promise me you’re going to live. Promise me.”

I slipped a little. Tried not to. Couldn’t help it:

“That’ll complete the circle, then we’re done; we’re both done, me and you. You shot me and I lived. I shot you and you live. See? That’s how it works. Ask anybody. Plus the fact that you’re Mr. Ten-Centuries-Old Superbeing destined to save us pitiful humans from the intergalactic swarm. That’s your job. What you were born to do. Or bred to. Whatever. You know, as plans to conquer the world go, yours has been pretty sucky. Almost a year into it and we’re still here, and who’s the one flat on his back like a bug with drool on his chin?”

Actually, he did have some drool on his chin. I dabbed it up with a corner of the blanket.

The door opened and big ol’ Poundcake stepped into the room. Then Dumbo, grinning from big ear to big ear, then Ben, and finally Sam. Finally as in no Teacup.

“How is he?” Ben asked.

“Burning up,” I answered. “Delirious. He keeps talking about grace.”

Ben frowned. “Like ‘Amazing Grace’?”

“Maybe saying grace, like before a meal,” Dumbo suggested. “He’s probably starving.”

Poundcake lumbered over to the window and stared down at the icy parking lot. I watched him Eeyore-walk across the room, then turned to Ben. “What happened?”

“He won’t say.”

“Then make him say. You’re the sarge, right?”

“I don’t think he can.”

“So Teacup’s vanished and we don’t know where or why.”

“She caught up with Ringer,” Dumbo guessed. “And Ringer decided to take her to the caverns, not waste any time bringing her back.”

I jerked my head toward Poundcake. “Where was he?”

“Found him outside,” Ben said.

“Doing what?”

“Just . . . hanging out.”

“Just hanging out? Really? You guys ever wonder which team Poundcake might be playing for?”

Ben shook his head wearily. “Sullivan, don’t start—”

“Seriously. The mute act could be just an
act.
Keeps you from having to answer any awkward questions. Plus the fact that it makes a lot of sense planting one of your own into each brainwashed squad, in case anybody starts to wise—”

“Right, and before Poundcake it was Ringer.” Ben was losing it. “Next it’ll be Dumbo. Or me. When the guy who admitted he was the enemy is lying right there, holding your hand.”

“Actually, I’m holding
his
hand. And he isn’t the enemy, Parish. I thought we covered this.”

“How do we know he didn’t kill Teacup? Or Ringer? How do we know that?”

“Oh, Christ, look at him. He couldn’t kill a . . . a . . .” I tried to think of the proper thing he had the strength to kill, but the only thing my hungry, sleep-deprived brain could come up with was
mayfly,
which would have been a really, really bad choice of words. Like an inadvertent omen, if an omen can be inadvertent.

Ben whipped around to Dumbo, who flinched. I think he preferred Ben’s wrath be directed at anybody but him. “Will he live?”

Dumbo shook his head, the tips of his ears growing bright pink. “It’s bad.”

“That’s my question. How bad? How soon before he can travel?”

“Not for a while.”

“Damn it, Dumbo, when?”

“A couple weeks? A month? His ankle’s broke, but that’s not the worst. The infection, then you’ve got the risk of gangrene . . .”

“A month? A month!” Ben laughed humorlessly. “He storms this place, takes you out, beats the crap out of me, and a couple hours later he can’t move for a month!”

“Then go!” I shouted across the room at him. “All of you. Leave him with me, and we’ll follow you as soon as we can.”

Ben’s mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped closed. Sam was hovering near Ben’s leg, one tiny finger hooked into his big buddy’s belt loop. Something in my heart gave a little at the sight. Ben told me they called my little brother “Zombie’s dog” in camp, meaning ever faithfully by his side.

Dumbo was nodding. “Makes sense to me, Sarge.”

“We had a plan,” Ben said. His lips barely moved. “And we’re sticking to the plan. If Ringer isn’t back by this time tomorrow, we’re bugging out.” He glared at me. “All of us.” He jabbed his thumb at Poundcake and Dumbo. “They can carry your boyfriend, if he needs to be carried.”

Ben turned, bumped into the wall, pinballed off it, lurched through the door and into the hall.

Dumbo trailed after him. “Sarge, where’re you . . . ?”

“Bed, Dumbo, bed! I gotta lie down or I’m gonna fall down. Take the first watch. Nugget—Sam—whatever your name is—what are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Stay with your sister. Wait. You’re right. She’s got her hands full—literally. Poundcake! Sullivan has the duty. Get some shut-eye, you big mute mother . . .”

His voice faded away. Dumbo came back to the foot of Evan’s bed.

“Sarge is strung out,” he explained, like I needed him to explain. “He’s usually pretty chill.”

“Me too,” I said. “I’m the laid-back type. No worries.”

He wouldn’t go away. He was looking at me and his cheeks were as bright red as his ears. “Is he really your boyfriend?”

“Who? No, Dumbo. He’s just a guy I met one day while he was trying to kill me.”

“Oh. Good.” He seemed relieved. “He’s like Vosch, you know.”

“He’s nothing like Vosch.”

“I mean he’s one of them.” Lowering his voice like he was sharing a dark secret. “Zombie says they’re not like these tiny bugs in our brains, but somehow they downloaded themselves into us like a computer virus or something.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“That’s weird.”

“Well, I guess they could have downloaded themselves into house cats, but going that route would’ve made our extermination more time-consuming.”

“Only by a month or two,” Dumbo said, and I laughed. Like Sammy’s, mine surprised me. If you wanted to separate humans from their humanity, I thought, killing laughter would be a good place to start. I was never very good at history, but I was pretty sure douchebags like Hitler didn’t laugh very much.

“I still don’t get it,” he went on. “Why one of them would be on our side.”

“I’m not sure he completely understands the answer to that question.”

Dumbo nodded, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath. He was dead on his feet. We all were. I called softly to him before he stepped outside.

“Dumbo.” Ben’s question, unanswered. “Is he going to make it?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. “If I were an alien and I could pick any body I wanted,” he said slowly, “I’d pick a really strong one. And then, just to make sure I’d live through the war, I’d like, I don’t know, make myself immune to every virus and bacteria on Earth. Or at least resistant. You know, like getting your dog vaccinated for rabies.”

I smiled. “You’re pretty smart, you know that, Dumbo?”

He blushed. “That’s a nickname based on my ears.”

He left. I had the eerie feeling of being watched. Because I was being watched: Poundcake stared at me from his post by the window.

“And you,” I said. “What’s your story? Why don’t you talk?”

He turned away, and his breath fogged the window.