by Rick Yancey
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?”
I squat beside the truck’s fuel tank and grab hold of the metal cap, praying one of those counterintuitive prayers that this bad boy is topped off—or better, half-full, since fumes will give us the biggest bang for the buck. I don’t dare ignite the cargo, but the few gallons of diesel contained beneath it should set it off. I hope.
The cap is frozen. I beat on it with the butt of my rifle, wrap both hands around it, and give it everything I’ve got. It pops loose with a very pungent, very satisfying hiss. I’ll have ten seconds. Should I count? Naw, screw it. I pull the pin on the grenade, drop it in the hole, and take off down the hill. The snow whips fitfully in my wake. My toe catches on something and I tumble the rest of the way, landing on my back at the bottom, hitting my head on the asphalt of the paved walking trail. I see snow spinning around my head and I can smell the river, and then I hear a soft wuh-wuumph and the tanker jumps about two feet into the air, followed by a gorgeous blossoming fireball that reflects off the falling snow, a mini universe of tiny suns shimmering, and now I’m up and chugging up the hill, my team nowhere in sight, and I can feel the heat against my left cheek as I come even with the truck, which is still in one piece, the tank intact. Dropping the grenade inside the fuel tank didn’t ignite the cargo. Do I throw another? Do I keep running? Blinded by the explosion, the sniper would rip off his night vision goggles. He won’t be blind for long.
I’m through the intersection and onto the curb when the gasoline ignites. The blast throws me forward, over the body of the first Ted dropped by Ringer, right into the glass doors of the office building. I hear something crack and hope it’s the doors and not some important part of me. Huge jagged shards of metal rain down, pieces of the tank torn apart by the blast hurled a hundred yards in every direction at bullet speeds. I hear someone screaming as I fold my arm
s over my head and curl myself into the tiniest ball possible. The heat is incredible. It’s like I’ve been swallowed by the sun.
The glass behind me shatters—from a high-caliber bullet, not the explosion. Half a block from the garage—go, Zombie. And I’m going hard until I come across Oompa crumpled on the sidewalk, Poundcake kneeling beside him, tugging on his shoulder, his face twisted in a soundless cry. It was Oompa I heard screaming after the tanker blew, and it takes me only a half second to see why: A piece of metal the size of a Frisbee juts out of his lower back.
I push Poundcake toward the garage—“Go!”—and heave Oompa’s round little body over my shoulder. I hear the report of the rifle this time, two beats after the shooter across the street fires, and a chunk of concrete breaks free of the wall behind me.
The first level of the garage is separated from the sidewalk by a waist-high concrete wall. I ease Oompa over the wall, then hop over and duck down. Ka-thunk: A fist-size chunk of the wall blows back toward me. Kneeling beside Oompa, I look up to see Poundcake hoofing it toward the stairwell. Now, as long as there isn’t another sniper’s nest in this building, and as long as the infested who got away hasn’t taken refuge here, too…
A quick check of Oompa’s injury isn’t encouraging. The sooner I can get him upstairs to Dumbo, the better.
“Private Oompa,” I breathe in his ear. “You do not have permission to die, understood?”
He nods, sucking in the freezing air, blowing it out again, warm from the center of his body. But he’s as white as the snow billowing in the golden light. I throw him back onto my shoulder and trot to the stairs, keeping as low as I can without losing my balance.
I take the stairs two at a time till I reach the third level, where I find the unit crouched behind the first line of cars, several feet back from the wall that faces the sniper’s building. Dumbo is kneeling beside Teacup, working on her leg. Her fatigues are ripped, and I can see an ugly red gash where a bullet tore across her calf. Dumbo slaps a dressing over the wound, hands her off to Ringer, then rushes over to Oompa. Flintstone is shaking his head at me.
“Told you we should abort,” Flint says. His eyes glitter with malice. “Now look.”
I ignore him. Turn to Dumbo. “Well?”
“It’s not good, Sarge.”
“Then make it good.” I look over at Teacup, who’s buried her head into Ringer’s chest, whimpering softly.
“It’s superficial,” Ringer tells me. “She can move.”
I nod. Oompa down. Teacup shot. Flint ready to mutiny. A sniper across the street and a hundred or so of his best friends on their way to the party. I’ve got to come up with something brilliant and come up with it quickly. “He knows where we are, which means we can’t camp here long. See if you can take him.”
She nods, but she can’t peel Teacup off her. I hold out my hands wet with Oompa’s blood: Give her to me. Delivered, Teacup squirms against my shirt. She doesn’t want me. I jerk my head toward the street and turn to Poundcake, “Cake, go with Ringer. Take the SOB out.”
Ringer and Poundcake duck between two cars and disappear. I stroke Teacup’s bare head—somewhere along the way she lost her cap—and watch Dumbo gingerly pull on the fragment in Oompa’s back. Oompa howls in agony, his fingers clawing at the ground. Unsure, Dumbo looks up at me. I nod. It’s gotta come out. “Quick, Dumbo. Slow makes it worse.” So he yanks.
Oompa folds in on himself, and the echoes of his screams rocket around the garage. Dumbo tosses the jagged piece of metal to one side and shines his light on the gaping wound.
Grimacing, he rolls Oompa onto his back. His shirtfront is soaked. Dumbo rips the shirt open, exposing the exit wound: The shrapnel had entered through his back and slammed through to the other side.
Flint turns away, crawls a couple feet, and his back arches as he vomits. Teacup gets very still watching all this. She’s going into shock. Teacup, the one who screamed the loudest during mock charges in the yard. Teacup, the bloodthirstiest, the one who sang the loudest in P&D. I’m losing her.
And I’m losing Oompa. As Dumbo presses wadding against the wound in Oompa’s gut, trying to stem the flow, his eyes seek out mine.
“What are your orders, Private?” I ask him.
“I—I am not to—to…”
Dumbo tosses the blood-soaked dressing away and presses a fresh patch against Oompa’s stomach. Looking into my face. Doesn’t have to say anything. Not to me. Not to Oompa.
I ease Teacup from my lap and kneel beside Oompa. His breath smells like blood and chocolate.
“It’s because I’m fat,” he chokes out. He starts to cry.
“Stow that shit,” I tell him sternly.
He whispers something. I bring my ear close to his mouth. “My name is Kenny.” Like it’s a terrible secret he’s been afraid to share.
His eyes roll toward the ceiling. Then he’s gone.
58
TEACUP’S LOST IT. Hugging her legs, forehead pressed against her upraised knees. I call over to Flint to keep an eye on her. I’m worried about Ringer and Poundcake. Flint looks like he wants to kill me with his bare hands.
“You’re the one who gave the order,” he snarls. “You watch her.”
Dumbo is cleaning his hands of Oompa’s—no, Kenny’s—blood. “I got it, Sarge,” he says calmly, but his hands are shaking.
“Sarge,” Flint spits out. “That’s right. What now, Sarge?”
I ignore him and scramble toward the wall, where I find Poundcake squatting beside Ringer. She’s on her knees, peeking over the edge of the wall toward the building across the street. I lower myself beside her, avoiding Poundcake’s questioning look.
“Oompa’s not screaming anymore,” Ringer says without taking her eyes off the building.
“His name was Kenny,” I say. Ringer nods; she gets it, but it takes Poundcake a minute or two more. He scoots away, putting distance between us, and presses both hands against the concrete, takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“You had to, Zombie,” Ringer says. “If you hadn’t, we might all be Kenny.”
That sounds really good. It sounded good when I said it to myself. Looking up at her profile, I wonder what Vosch was thinking, pinning the stripes on my collar. The commander promoted the wrong squad member.
“Well?” I ask her.
She nods across the street. “Pop goes the weasel.”
I slowly rise up. In the light of the dying fire, I can see the building: a facade of broken windows, peeling white paint, and the roof one story higher than us. A vague shadow that might be a water tower up there, but that’s all I see.
“Where?” I whisper.
“He just ducked down again. Been doing that. Up, down, up, down, like a jack-in-the-box.”
“Just one?”
“Only one I’ve seen.”
“Does he light up?”
Ringer shakes her head. “Negative, Zombie. He doesn’t read infested.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “Poundcake see him, too?”
She nods. “No green.” Watching me with those dark eyes like knives cutting deep.
“Maybe he’s not the shooter…,” I try.
“Saw his weapon,” she says. “Sniper rifle.”
So why doesn’t he glow green? The ones on the street lit up, and they were farther away than he is. Then I think it doesn’t matter if he glows green or purple or nothing at all: He’s trying to kill us, and we can’t move until he’s neutralized. And we have to move before the one who got away comes back with reinforcements.
“Aren’t they smart?” Ringer mutters, like she’s read my mind. “Put on a human face so no human face can be trusted. The only answer: Kill everyone or risk being killed by anyone.”
“He thinks we’re one of them?”
“Or decided it doesn’t matter. Only way to be safe.”
“But he fired on us—not on the three right below him. Why would he ignore the easy shots to take the impossible one?”
Like me,
she doesn’t have an answer to that question. Unlike me, it’s not high on her list of problems to be resolved. “Only way to be safe,” she repeats pointedly. I look over at Poundcake, who’s looking back at me. Waiting for my decision, but there really isn’t a decision to make.
“Can you take him from here?” I ask Ringer.
She shakes her head. “Too far away. I’d just give away our position.”
I scoot over to Poundcake. “Stay here. In ten minutes, open up on him to cover our crossing.” Staring up at me all doe-eyed and trusting. “You know, Private, it’s customary to acknowledge an order from your commanding officer.” Poundcake nods. I try again: “With a ‘yes, sir.’” He nods again. “Like, out loud. With words.” Another nod.
Okay, at least I tried.
When Ringer and I join the others, Oompa’s body is gone. They stashed him in one of the cars. Flint’s idea. Very similar to his idea for the rest of us.
“We’ve got good cover in here. I say we hunker down in the cars until pickup.”
“Only one person’s vote counts in this unit, Flint,” I tell him.
“Yeah, and how’s that working out for us?” he says, thrusting his chin toward me, mouth curled into a sneer. “Oh, I know. Let’s ask Oompa!”
“Flintstone,” Ringer says. “At ease. Zombie’s right.”
“Until you two walk into an ambush, and then I guess he’s wrong.”
“At which point you’re the C.O., and you can make the call,” I snap. “Dumbo, you’ve got Teacup duty.” If we can pry her off Ringer. She’s pasted herself back onto Ringer’s leg. “If we’re not back in thirty minutes, we’re not coming back.”
And then Ringer says, because she’s Ringer, “We’re coming back.”
59
THE TANKER’S BURNED down to its tires. Crouching in the pedestrian entrance to the garage, I point at the building across the street glowing orange in the firelight.
“That’s our entry point. Third window from the left-hand corner, completely busted out, see it?”
