Текст книги "The 5th Wave"

Автор книги: Rick Yancey

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

80

THE SIREN’S BLARE is so loud, I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck vibrating.

I am scooting backward toward the main duct, away from the armory, when I stop.

Cassie, it’s the armory.

Back to the grate, through which I stare for a full three minutes, scanning the room below for any sign of movement while the siren pounds against my ears, making it very difficult to concentrate, thank you, Colonel Vosch.

“Okay, you damn bear,” I mumble with my swollen tongue. “We’re going in.”

I slam the heel of my bare foot into the grate. Eich! It pops open with one kick. When I quit karate, Mom asked why, and I said it just didn’t challenge me anymore. That was my way of saying I was bored, which you were not allowed to say in front of my mother. If she heard you complain that you were bored, you found yourself with a dust rag in your hand.

I drop into the room. Well, more a medium-size warehouse than a room. Everything an alien invader might need to run a human extermination camp. Against that wall you have your Eyes, several hundred of them, stacked neatly in their own specially designed cubby. On the opposite wall, rows and rows of rifles and grenade launchers and other weaponry that I would have no clue what to do with. Smaller weapons over there, semiautomatics and grenades and ten-inch-long combat knives. There’s a wardrobe section, too, representing every branch of the service and every possible rank, with all the gear to go with it, belts and boots and the military version of the fanny pack.

And me like a kid in a candy shop.

First, off comes the white jumpsuit. I pull the smallest set of fatigues I can find and put them on. Slip on the boots.

Time to gear up. A Luger with a full clip. A couple of grenades. M16? Why not? If you’re going to play the part, look the part. I drop a couple extra clips into my fanny pack. Oh, look, my belt even has a holster for one of those ten-inch, wicked-looking knives! Hi there, ten-inch, wicked-looking knife.

There’s a wooden box beside the gun cabinet. I peek inside and see a stack of gray metal tubes. What are these, some kind of stick-grenade? I pick one up. It’s hollow and threaded at one end. Now I know what it is.

A silencer.

And it fits perfectly on the barrel of my new M16. Screws right in.

I stuff my hair under a cap that is too large for me and wish I had a mirror. I’m hoping to pass for one of Vosch’s tween recruits, but I probably look more like GI Joe’s little sister playing dress-up.

Now what to do with Bear. I find a leather satchel-looking thing and stuff him inside, throw the strap crossways over my shoulder. I’ve stopped noticing the blaring siren by this point. I’m all jacked up. Not only have I evened the odds a little, I know Evan is here, and Evan will not give up until I am safe or he is dead.

Back to the ductwork, and I’m debating whether to attempt it, weighed down as I am with twenty or so extra pounds, or take my chances in the corridors. What good is a disguise if you’re going all stealthy with it? I turn around and head toward the door, and that’s when the siren cuts off and silence slams down.

I don’t take that as a good sign.

It also occurs to me that being in an armory full of green bombs—one of which can level a square mile—while a dozen or so of their closest friends are being set off upstairs might not be such a good idea.

I haul ass for the door, but I don’t make it before the first Eye goes. The entire room jiggles. Only a few feet left, and the next Eye blinks its last blink, and this one must be closer, because dust rains down from the ceiling, and the duct at the other end snaps free of its supports and comes crashing down.

Um, Voschy, that was kind of close, don’t you think?

I push through the door. No time to scout the territory. The more distance I can put between me and the remaining Eyes, the better. I sprint under the swirling red lights, turning down hallways at random, trying not to think anything through, just going on instinct and luck.

Another explosion. The walls tremble. The dust falls. From above the sound of the buildings being ripped and shredded down to their last nails. And here below, the screaming of terrified children.

I follow the screams.

Sometimes I make a wrong turn and the cries grow fainter. I backtrack, then try the next corridor. This place is like a maze, and me the lab rat.

The booming from above has stopped, at least for the moment, and I slow to a trot, gripping the rifle hard with both hands, trying one passage, backtracking when the crying fades, moving on again.

I hear Major Bob’s voice on a bullhorn bouncing along the walls, coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“Okay, I want you all to stay seated with your group leader! Everybody quiet down and listen to me! Stay with your group leaders!”

I turn a corner and see a squad of soldiers running right at me. Teenagers, mostly. I throw myself against the wall, and they rush past me without even glancing in my direction. Why would they notice me? I’m just another recruit on her way to battle the alien horde.

They turn a corner, and I’m moving again. I can hear the kids jabbering and whimpering, despite Major Bob’s scolding, around the next bend.

Almost there, Sam. Now you be there.

“Halt!”

Shouted from behind me. Not a kid’s voice. I stop. Square my shoulders. Stay still.

“Where’s your duty station, soldier? Soldier, I’m talking to you!”

“Ordered to guard the children, sir!” I say in the deepest voice I can muster.

“Turn around! Look at me when you address me, soldier.”

I sigh. Turn. He’s in his midtwenties, not bad looking, an all-American-boy type. I don’t know military insignia, but I think he might be an officer.

To be absolutely safe, anyone over eighteen is suspect. There may be some human adults in positions of authority, but knowing Vosch, I doubt it. So if it’s an adult, and especially if it’s an officer, I think you can assume they are not human.

“What’s your number?” he barks.

My number? I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “Tee-sixty-two, sir!”

He gives me a puzzled look. “Tee-sixty-two? Are you sure?”

“Yes sir, sir!” Sir, sir? Oh God, Cassie.

“Why aren’t you with your unit?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and good thing, because nothing is really coming to mind. He steps forward and looks me up and down, and clearly I’m not in regulation. Officer Alien does not like what he sees.

“Where’s your name tag, soldier? And what are you doing with a suppressor on your weapon? And what is this?”

He pulls on the bulging leather satchel holding Bear.

I pull back. The satchel pops open and I’m busted. “It’s a teddy bear, sir.”

“A what?”

He stares down at my upturned face and something crosses over his as the lightbulb comes on and he realizes who he’s looking at. His right hand flies toward his sidearm, but that’s a really dumb move when all he had to do was lay his fist upside my teddy-bear-toting head. I swing the silencer in a slicing arc, stopping it an inch from his boyish good looks, and pull the trigger.

Now you’ve done it, Cassie. Blown the one chance you had, and you were so close.

I can’t just leave Officer Alien where he fell. They might miss all the blood in the hurly-burly of battle, and it’s nearly invisible anyway in the spinning red light, but not the body. What am I going to do with the body?

I’m close, so close, and I’m not going to let some dead guy keep me from Sammy. I grab him by the ankles and drag him back down the corridor, into another passageway, around another corner, and then drop him. He’s heavier than he looks. I take a moment to stretch out the kink in my lower back before hurrying away. Now if someone stops me before I can reach the safe room, my plan is to say whatever is necessary to avoid killing again. Unless I’m given no choice. And then I will kill again.

Evan was right: It does get a little easier each time.

The room is packed with kids. Hundreds of kids. Dressed in identical white jumpsuits. Sitting in big groups spread over an area about the size of a high school gymnasium. They’ve quieted down some. Maybe I should just shout out Sam’s name or borrow Major Bob’s bullhorn. I pick my way through the room, lifting my boots high to avoid stepping on any little fingers or toes.

So many faces. They begin to blur together. The room expands, explodes past the walls, extending to infinity, filled with billions of little upturned faces, and oh those bastards, those bastards, what have they done? In my tent I cried for myself and the silly, stupid life that had been taken from me. Now I beg forgiveness from the infinite sea of upturned faces.

I’m still stumbling around like a zombie when I hear a little voice calling my name. Coming from a group I had just passed, and it’s funny he recognized me and not the other way around. I go still. I do not turn. I close my eyes, but can’t bring myself to turn around.

“Cassie?”

I lower my head. There is a lump the size of Texas caught in my throat. And then I turn and he’s staring at me with something like fear, like this might be the last straw, seeing a dead ringer for his sister tiptoeing around dressed up like a soldier. Like he’s reached the outer limits of the Others’ cruelty.

I kneel in front of my brother. He doesn’t rush into my arms. He stares at my tear-streaked face and brings his fingers to my wet cheek. Across my nose, forehead, chin, over my fluttering eyelids.

“Cassie?”

Is it okay now? Can he believe? If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?

“Hey, Sams.”

He cocks his head slightly. I must sound funny to him with the bloated tongue. I fumble with the clasp of the leather satchel.

“I, um, I thought you might want this back.”

I pull out the battered old teddy bear and hold it toward him. He frowns and shakes his head and doesn’t reach for it, and I feel like he’s punched me in the gut.

Then my baby brother slaps that damned bear out of my hand and crushes his face against my chest, and beneath the odors of sweat and strong soap I can smell it, his smell, Sammy’s, my brother’s.

81

THE GREEN EYE looked at me and I looked back at it, and I don’t remember what snatched me back from the edge between the blinking eye and what came next.

My first clear memory? Running.

Lobby. Stairwell. Basement level. First landing. Second landing.

When I hit the third landing, the concussion of the blast slams into my back like a wrecking ball, hurling me down the stairs and into the door that opens to the bomb shelter.

Above me, the hospital screams as it’s torn apart. That’s what it sounds like: a living thing screaming as it’s being ripped to pieces. The thunderous crack of mortar and stone shattering. The screech of nails snapping and the shriek of two hundred windows exploding. The floor buckles, splits open. I dive headfirst into the hallway of reinforced concrete as the building above me disintegrates.

The lights flicker once, and then the corridor plunges into darkness. I’ve never been to this part of the complex, but I don’t need the luminescent arrows on the walls to show me the way to the safe room. All I have to do is follow the terrified screams of the children.

But first it would be helpful to stand.

The fall has completely torn open the sutures; I’m bleeding heavily now, from both wounds: where Ringer’s bullet went in and where it came out. I try to stand up. I give it my best shot, but my legs won’t hold me up. I get halfway up and then down again I go, head spinning, gasping for air.

A second explosion knocks me flat out on the floor. I manage to crawl a few inches before a third blast knocks me down again. Damn it, what are you doing up there, Vosch?

If it is too late, we’ll have no choice but to execute the option of last resort.

Well, guess that particular mystery is solved. Vosch is blowing up his own base. Destroying the village in order to save it. But save it from what? Unless it isn’t Vosch. Maybe Ringer and I are totally wrong. Maybe I’m risking my life and Nugget’s for nothing. Camp Haven is what Vosch says it is and that means Ringer walked into a camp of infesteds with her guard down. Ringer is dead. Ringer and Dumbo and Poundcake and little Teacup. Christ, have I done it again? Run when I should have stayed? Turned my back when I should have fought?

The next explosion is the worst. It hits directly overhead. I cover my head with both arms as chunks of concrete as big as my fist rain down. The concussions from the bombs, the drug lingering in my system, the loss of blood, the darkness…all of it conspires to pin me down. From a distance, I can hear someone screaming—and then I realize that it’s me.

You have to get up. You have to get up. You have to keep your promise to Sissy…

No. Not Sissy. Sissy’s dead. You left her behind, you stinking bag of regurgitated puke.

Damn, it hurts. The pain of the wounds that bleed and the pain of the old wound that will not heal.

Sissy, with me in the dark.

I can see her hand reaching for me in the dark.

I’m here, Sissy. Take my hand.

Reaching for her in the dark.

82

SISSY PULLS AWAY, and I’m alone again.

When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the thing you thought you could not face—the moment when your life teeters between giving up and getting up—when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can’t get up and you can’t give up, either, here’s what you do:

Crawl.

Sliding forward on my stomach, I reach the intersection of the main corridor that runs the length of the complex. Have to rest. Two minutes, no more. The emergency lights flicker on. I know where I am now. Left to the air shaft, right to the central command hub and the safe room.

Tick-tock. My two-minute break is over. I push myself to my feet using the wall for support, and I nearly black out from the pain. Even if I grab Nugget without getting grabbed myself, how will I get him out of here in this condition?

Plus I sincerely doubt there are any buses left. Or any Camp Haven, for that matter. Once I grab him—if I grab him—where the hell are we going to go?

I shuffle down the corridor, keeping one hand on the wall to steady myself. Ahead, I can hear someone shouting at the kids in the safe room, telling them to stay calm and stay seated, everything was going to be okay and they were perfectly safe.

Tick-tock. Right before the final turn, I glance to my left and see something crumpled against the wall: a human body.

A dead human body.

Still warm. Wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. Half its face blasted away by a high-caliber bullet fired at close range.

Not a recruit. One of them. Has someone else figured out the truth here? Maybe.

Or maybe the dead guy was shot by a trigger-happy, jacked-up recruit, mistaking him for a Ted.

No more wishful thinking, Parish.

I pull the sidearm from the dead man’s holster and slip it into the pocket of the lab coat. Then I pull the surgical mask over my face.

Dr. Zombie, you’re wanted in the safe room, stat!

And there it is, straight ahead. A few more yards and I’m there.

I made it, Nugget. I’m here. Now you be here.

And it’s like he heard me, because there he is walking toward me, carrying—believe it or not—a teddy bear.

Only he isn’t alone. There’s someone with him, a recruit around Dumbo’s age in a baggy uniform and a cap pulled down low, the brim resting just above his eyes, carrying an M16 with some kind of metal pipe attached to its barrel.

No time to think it through. Because faking my way through this one will take too much time and rely too much on luck, and it isn’t about luck anymore. It’s about being hardcore.

Because this is the last war, and only the hardcore will survive it.

Because of the step in the plan I skipped over. Because of Kistner.

I drop my hand into the coat pocket. I close the gap. Not yet, not yet. My wound throws off my stride. I have to take him down with the first shot.

Yes, he’s a kid.

Yes, he’s innocent.

And, yes, he’s toast.

83

I WANT TO DRINK IN his sweet Sammy smell forever, but I can’t. The place is crawling with armed soldiers, some of them Silencers—or anyway, not teens, so I have to assume they’re Silencers. I lead Sammy over to a wall, putting a group of kids between us and the nearest guard. I scrunch down as low as possible and whisper, “Are you okay?”

He nods. “I knew you’d come, Cassie.”

“I promised, right?”

He’s wearing a heart-shaped locket around his neck. What the heck? I touch it, and he pulls back a little.

“Why are you dressed like that?” he asks.

“I’ll explain later.”

“You’re a soldier now, aren’t you? What squad are you in?”

Squad? “No squad,” I tell him. “I’m my own squad.”

He frowns. “You can’t be your own squad, Cassie.”

This isn’t really the time to get into the whole ridiculous squad thing. I glance around the room. “Sam, we’re getting out of here.”

“I know. Major Bob says we’re going on a big plane.” He nods toward Major Bob, starts to wave at him. I push his hand down.

“A big plane? When?”

He shrugs. “Soon.” He’s picked up Bear. Now he examines him, turning him over in his hands. “His ear’s ripped,” he points out accusingly, like I’ve shirked my duty.

“Tonight?” I ask. “Sam, this is important. You’re flying out tonight?”

“That’s what Major Bob said. He said they’re vaculating all nonessentials.”

“Vaculating? Oh. Okay, so they’re evacuating the kids.” My mind is racing, trying to work through it. Is that the way out? Just stroll on board with the others and take our chances when we land—wherever we land? God, why did I ditch the white jumpsuit? But even if I kept it and was able to sneak onto the plane, that wasn’t the plan.

There’s going to be escape pods somewhere on the base—probably near the command center or Vosch’s quarters. Basically they’re one-man rockets, preprogrammed to land you safely at some spot far from the base. Don’t ask me where. But the pods are your best bet—not human technology, but I’ll explain how you operate one. If you can find one, and if both of you can fit in one, and if you live long enough to find one to fit in.

That’s a lot of ifs. Maybe I should beat up a kid my size and take her jumpsuit.

“How long have you been here, Cassie?” Sam asks. I think he suspects I’ve been avoiding him, maybe because I let Bear’s ear get torn.

“Longer than I wanted to be,” I mutter, and that decides it: We’re not staying here a minute longer than we have to, and we’re not taking some one-way flight to Camp Haven II. I’m not trading one death camp for another.

He’s playing with Bear’s torn ear. Not his first injury by a long shot. I’ve lost count of how many times Mom had to patch him up. He has more stitches in him than Frankenstein. I lean over to get Sammy’s attention, and that’s when he looks right at me and asks, “Where’s Daddy?”

My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I hadn’t even thought about telling him—or how to tell him.

“Dad? Oh, he’s…” No, Cassie. Don’t get complicated. I don’t want him having a meltdown right as we’re preparing to make our getaway. I decide to let Dad live a little longer.

“He’s waiting for us back at Camp Ashpit.”

His lower lip starts to quiver. “Daddy isn’t here?”

“Daddy is busy,” I say, hoping to shut him down, and I feel like crap doing it. “That’s why he sent me. To get you. And that’s what I’m doing, right now, getting you.”

I pull him to his feet. He goes, “But what about the plane?”

“You’ve been bumped.” He gives me a puzzled look: Bumped? “Let’s go.”

I grab his hand and head for the tunnel, keeping my shoulders back and my head up, because skulking toward the nearest exit like Shaggy and Scooby tinkle-toeing is sure to draw attention. I even bark at some kids to get out of the way. If someone tries to stop us, I won’t shoot them. I’ll explain that the kid is sick and I’m getting him to a doctor before he pukes all over himself and everybody else. If they don’t buy my story, then I shoot them.

And then we’re in the tunnel and, incredibly, there is a doctor walking straight at us, half his face hidden behind a surgical mask. His eyes widen when he sees us, and there goes my clever cover story, which means if he stops us I’ll have to shoot him. As we draw closer, I see him casually drop his hand into the pocket of his white coat, and the alarm sounds inside my head, the same alarm that went off in the convenience store behind the beer coolers right before I pumped an entire clip into a crucifix-holding soldier.

I have one half of one half second to decide.

This is the first rule of the last war: Trust no one.

I level the silencer at his chest as his hand emerges from the pocket.

The hand that holds a gun.

But my hand holds an M16 assault rifle.

How long is one half of one half second?

Long enough for a little boy who doesn’t know the first rule to leap between the gun and the rifle.

“Sammy!” I yell, pulling up the shot. My little brother hops onto his toes; his fingers tear at the doctor’s mask and yank it down.

I’d hate to see the look on my face when that mask came down and I saw the face behind it. Thinner than I remember. Paler. The eyes sunk deep into their sockets, kind of glazed over, like he’s sick or hurt, but I recognize it, I know whose face was hidden behind that mask. I just can’t process it.

Here, in this place. A thousand years later and a million miles from the halls of George Barnard High School. Here, in the belly of the beast at the bottom of the world, standing right in front of me.

Benjamin Thomas Parish.

And Cassiopeia Marie Sullivan, having a full-bore out-of-body experience, seeing herself seeing him. The last time she saw him was in their high school gymnasium after the lights went out, and then only the back of his head, and the only times that she’s seen him since happened in her mind, the rational part of which always knew Ben Parish was dead like everyone else.

“Zombie!” Sammy calls. “I knew it was you.”

Zombie?

“Where are you taking him?” Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don’t remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?

“Zombie, that’s Cassie,” Sam chides him. “You know—Cassie.”

“Cassie?” Like he’s never heard the name before.

“Zombie?” I say, because I really haven’t heard that name before.

I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.

“We go to the same high school,” I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. “I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry.”

Ben shakes his head like he’s clearing out the cobwebs.

Sammy goes, “I told you she was coming.”

“Quiet, Sam,” I scold him.

“Sam?” Ben asks.

“My name is Nugget now, Cassie,” Sam informs me.

“Well, sure it is.” I turn to Ben. “You know my brother.”

Ben nods carefully. I still don’t get his attitude. Not that I expect him to throw his arms around me or even remember me from chemistry class, but his voice is tight, and he’s still holding the gun by his side.

“Why are you dressed like a doctor?” Sammy asks.

Ben like a doctor. Me like a soldier. Like two kids playing dress-up. A fake doctor and a fake soldier debating with themselves whether to blow the other one’s brains out.

Those first few moments between me and Ben Parish were very strange.

“I came to get you out of here,” Ben says to Sam, still looking at me.

Sam glances over at me. Isn’t that why I came? Now he’s really confused.

“You’re not taking my brother anywhere,” I say.

“It’s a lie,” Ben blurts out at me. “Vosch is one of them. They’re using us to kill off the survivors, to kill each other…”

“I know that,” I snap. “How do you know that, and what does that have to do with taking Sam?”

Ben seems stunned by my response to his bombshell. Then I get it. He thinks I’ve been indoctrinated like everybody else in the camp. It’s so ridiculous, I actually laugh. While I’m laughing like an idiot, I get something else: He hasn’t been brainwashed, either.

Which means I can trust him.

Unless he’s playing me, getting me to lower my guard—and my weapon—so he can waste me and take Sam.

Which means I can’t trust him.

I also can’t read his mind, but he must be thinking along the same lines when I burst out laughing. Why is this crazy girl with the helmet-hair laughing? Because he’s stated the obvious or because I think his story’s crap?

“I know,” Sammy says to broker the peace. “We can all go together!”

“Do you know a way out of here?” I ask Ben. Sammy’s more trusting than I am, but the idea’s worth exploring. Finding the escape pods—if they even exist—has always been the weakest part of my getaway plan.

He nods. “Do you?”

“I know a way—I just don’t know the way to the way.”

“The way to the way? Okay.” He grins. He looks like hell, but the smile hasn’t changed a bit. It lights up the tunnel like a thousand-watt bulb. “I know the way and the way to the way.”

He drops the gun into his pocket and holds out his empty hand.

“Let’s go together.”

The thing that gets me is whether I’d take that hand if it belonged to anyone other than Ben Parish.