I hate him right now. If he were here right now, I’d punch him in the face for being such an ignorant dweeb.
The corporal motioned toward the barracks. It was time for Colonel Vosch’s briefing.
Time for the world to end.
19
I PICKED OUT Vosch right away.
Standing just inside the door, very tall, the only guy in fatigues not cradling a rifle against his chest.
He nodded to Hutchfield when we stepped inside the old hospital/charnel house. Then Corporal Branch gave a salute and squeezed into the line of soldiers that ringed the walls.
That’s how it was: soldiers standing along three of the four walls, refugees in the middle.
Dad’s hand sought out mine. Sammy’s teddy in one hand, the other hanging on to his.
How about it, Dad? Did that little voice get louder when you saw the men with guns against the walls? Is that why you grabbed my hand?
“All right, now can we get some answers?” someone shouted when we stepped inside.
Everybody started to talk at once—everyone except the soldiers—shouting out questions.
“Have they landed?”
“What do they look like?”
“What are they?”
“What are those gray ships we keep seeing in the sky?”
“When do the rest of us get to leave?”
“How many survivors have you found?”
Vosch held up his hand for quiet. It only half worked.
Hutchfield gave him a smart salute. “All present and accounted for, sir!”
I did a quick head count. “No,” I said. I raised my voice to be heard over the din. “No!” I looked at Dad. “Crisco’s not here.”
Hutchfield frowned. “Who’s Crisco?”
“He’s this cree—this kid—”
“Kid? Then he left on the buses with the others.”
The others. It’s kind of funny when I think about it now. Funny in a sickening way.
“We need everyone in this building,” Vosch said from behind his mask. His voice was very deep, a subterranean rumble.
“He probably had a freakout,” I said. “He’s kind of a wuss.”
“Where would he go?” Vosch asked.
I shook my head. I had no clue. Then I did, more than a clue. I knew where Crisco had gone.
“The ash pit.”
“Where is the ash pit?”
“Cassie,” Dad spoke up. He was squeezing my hand hard. “Why don’t you go get Crisco for us so the colonel can start our briefing?”
“Me?”
I didn’t get it. I think Dad’s little voice was screaming by this point, but I couldn’t hear it, and he couldn’t say it. All he could do was try to telegraph it with his eyes. Maybe it was this: Do you know how to tell who the enemy is, Cassie?
I don’t know why he didn’t volunteer to go with me. Maybe he thought they wouldn’t suspect a kid of anything, and one of us would make it—or at least have a chance to make it.
Maybe.
“All right,” Vosch said. He flicked his finger at Corporal Branch: Go with her.
“She’ll be okay alone,” Dad said. “She knows those woods like the back of her hand. Five minutes, right, Cassie?” He looked at Vosch and smiled. “Five minutes.”
“Don’t be a dumbass, Sullivan,” Hutchfield said. “She can’t go out there without an escort.”
“Sure,” Dad said. “Right. You’re right, of course.”
He leaned over and gave me a hug. Not too tight, not too long. A quick hug. Squeeze. Release. Anything more would seem like a good-bye.
Good-bye, Cassie.
Branch turned to his commander and said, “First priority, sir?”
And Vosch nodded. “First priority.”
We stepped into the bright sunshine, the man in the gas mask and the girl with the teddy bear. Straight ahead a couple of soldiers were leaning against a Humvee. I hadn’t seen them when we passed the Humvees before. They straightened at the sight of us. Corporal Branch gave them a thumbs-up and then held up his index finger. First priority.
“How far is it?” he asked me.
“Not far,” I answered. My voice sounded very small to me. Maybe it was Sammy’s teddy, tugging me back to childhood.
He followed me down the trail that snaked into the dense woods behind the compound, rifle held in front of him, barrel down. The dry ground crunched in protest under his brown boots.
The day was warm, but it was cooler under the trees, their leaves a rich, late-summer green. We passed the tree where I’d stashed the M16. I didn’t look back at it. I kept walking toward the clearing.
And there he was, the little shit, up to his ankles in bones and dust, clawing through the broken remains for that last, useless, priceless trinket, one more for the road so whenever he got to where the road ended he’d be the Man.
His head came around when we stepped inside the ring of trees. Glistening with sweat and the crap he slopped in his hair. Streaks of black soot stained his cheeks. He looked like some sorry-ass excuse of a football player. When he saw us, his hand whipped behind his back. Something silver flashed in the sun.
“Hey! Cassie? Hey, there you are. I came back here looking for you because you weren’t in the barracks, and then I saw…there was this—”
“Is he the one?” the soldier asked me. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and took a step toward the pit.
It was me, the soldier in the middle, and Crisco in the pit of ash and bone.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s Crisco.”
“That’s not my name,” he squeaked. “My real name is—”
I’ll never know Crisco’s real name.
I didn’t see the gun or hear the report of the soldier’s sidearm. I didn’t see the soldier draw it from his holster, but I wasn’t looking at the soldier, I was looking at Crisco. His head snapped back, like someone had yanked on his greasy locks, and he sort of folded up as he went down, clutching the treasures of the dead in his hand.
20
MY TURN.
The girl wearing the backpack and carrying the ridiculous teddy bear, standing just a couple of yards behind him.
The soldier pivoted, arm extended. My memory’s a little fuzzy about this next part. I don’t remember dropping the bear or yanking the gun from my back pocket. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger.
The next clear memory I have is of the black visor shattering.
And the soldier falling to his knees in front of me.
And seeing his eyes.
His three eyes.
Well, of course I realized later he didn’t really have three eyes. The one in the middle was the blackened entry wound of the bullet.
It must have shocked him to turn around and see a gun pointed at his face. It made him hesitate. How long? A second? Less than a second? But in that millisecond, eternity coiled on itself like a giant anaconda. If you’ve ever been through a traumatic accident, you know what I’m talking about. How long does a car crash last? Ten seconds? Five? It doesn’t feel that short if you’re in it. It feels like a lifetime.
He pitched over face-first into the dirt. There was no question I’d wasted him. My bullet had blasted a pie plate–sized hole in the back of his head.
But I didn’t lower the gun. I kept it pointed at his half head as I backed toward the trail.
Then I turned and ran like hell.
In the wrong direction.
Toward the compound.
Not smart. But I wasn’t thinking at that point. I’m only sixteen, and this was the first person I’d shot point-blank in the face. I was having trouble dealing.
I just wanted to get back to Dad.
Dad would fix this.
Because that’s what dads do. They fix things.
My mind didn’t register the sounds at first. The woods echoed with the staccato bursts of automatic weapons and people screaming, but it wasn’t computing, like Crisco’s head snapping back and the way he flopped into the gray dust like every bone in his body had suddenly turned into Jell-O, the way his killer had swung around in a perfectly executed pirouette with the barrel of the gun flashing in the sunlight.
The world was ripping apart. And pieces of the wreckage were raining all around me.
It was the beginning of the 4th Wave.
I skittered to a stop before reaching the compound. The hot smell of gunpowder. Wisps of smoke curling out of the barrack windows. There was a person crawling toward the storage shed.
It was my father.
His back was arched. His face was covered in dirt and blood. The ground behind my father was pockmarked with my father’s blood.
He looked over as I came out of the trees.
No, Cassie, he mouthed. Then his arms gave out. He toppled over, lay still.
A soldier emerged from the barracks. He strolled over to my father. Easy, catlike grace, shoulders relaxed, arms loose at his sides.
I backed into the trees. I raised the gun. But I was over a hundred feet away. If I missed…
It was Vosch. He seemed even taller standing over the crumpled form of my father. Dad wasn’t moving. I think he was playing dead.
It didn’t matter.
Vosch shot him anyway.
I don’t remember making any noise when he pulled the trigger. But I must have done something to set off Vosch’s Spidey sense. The black mask whipped around, sunlight flashing off the visor. He held up his index finger toward two soldiers coming out of the barracks, then jabbed his thumb in my direction.