The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(31)

You ran away. Bubby, why did you run?

And then the smoke pulls her apart, splinters her, smashes her body into nothing. I call out to her. Crueler than seeing her is the not seeing her. I’m clutching the silver chain so tight that the links cut into my palm.

Reaching for her. Running from her.

Reaching. Running.

Outside the tent, the red smoke of funeral pyres. Inside, the red fog of plague.

You’re the lucky one, I tell Sissy. You left before things got really messy.

Gunfire erupts in the distance. Only this time it’s not the sporadic pop-pop of some desperate refugee firing at shadows, but big guns that go off with an eardrum-thumping puh-DOOM. The high-pitched screeching of tracer fire. The rapid reports of automatic weapons.

Wright-Patterson is under attack.

Part of me is relieved. It’s like a release, the final cracking open of the storm after the long wait. The other part of me, the one that still thinks I might survive the plague, is ready to wet his pants. Too weak to move off the cot and too scared to do it even if I wasn’t. I close my eyes and whisper a prayer for the men and women of Wright-Patterson to waste an invader or two for me and Sissy. But mostly for Sissy.

Explosions now. Big explosions. Explosions that make the ground tremble, that vibrate against your skin, that press hard against your temples and push on your chest and squeeze. It sounds as if the world is being ripped apart, which in a way it is.

The little tent is choking with smoke, and the opening glows like a triangular eye, a burning ember of bright hellish red. This is it, I’m thinking. I’m not going to die of the plague after all. I’m going to live long enough to be wasted by an actual alien invader. A better way to go, quicker anyway. Trying to put a positive spin on my impending demise.

A gunshot rings out. Very close, judging by the sound of it, maybe two or three tents down. I hear a woman screaming incoherently, another shot, and then the woman isn’t screaming anymore. Then silence. Then two more shots. The smoke swirls, the red eye glows. I can hear him now, coming toward me, hear his boots squishing in the wet earth. I fumble under the wad of clothing and jumble of empty water bottles beside the cot for my gun, a revolver Chris had given me on the day he invited me to be his tentmate. Where’s your gun? he asked. He was shocked to learn I wasn’t packing. You have to have a gun, pal, he said. Even the kids have guns. Never mind that I can’t hit the broad side of a barn or that the odds are very good I’ll shoot off my own foot; in the post-human age, Chris is a firm believer in the Second Amendment.

I wait for him to appear in the opening, Sissy’s silver locket in one hand, Chris’s revolver in the other. In one hand, the past. In the other, the future. That’s one way to look at it.

Maybe if I play possum he—or it—will move on. I watch the opening through slits for eyes.

And then he’s here, a thick, black pupil in the crimson eye, swaying unsteadily as he leans inside the tent, three, maybe four feet away, and I can’t see his face, but I can hear him gasping for breath. I’m trying to control my own breathing, but no matter how shallowly I do it, the rattle of the infection in my chest sounds louder than the explosions of the battle. I can’t make out exactly what he’s wearing, except his pants seem to be tucked into his tall boots. A soldier? Must be. He’s holding a rifle.

I’m saved. I raise the hand holding the locket and call out weakly. He stumbles forward. Now I can see his face. He’s young, just a little older than I am, and his neck is shiny with blood, and so are the hands that hold the rifle. He goes to one knee beside the cot, then recoils when he sees my face, the sallow skin, the swollen lips, and the sunken bloodshot eyes that are the telltale signs of the plague.

Unlike mine, the soldier’s eyes are clear—and wide with terror.

“We had it wrong, all wrong!” he whispers. “They’re already here—been here—right here—inside us—the whole time—inside us.”

Two large shapes leap through the opening. One grabs the soldier by the collar and drags him outside. I raise the old revolver—or try to, because it slips from my hand before I can lift it two inches above the blanket. Then the second one is on me, knocking the revolver away, yanking me upright. The aftershock of pain blinds me for a second. He yells over his shoulder at his buddy, who has just ducked back inside. “Scan him!” A large metal disk is pressed against my forehead.

“He’s clean.”

“And sick.” Both men are dressed in fatigues—the same fatigues worn by the soldier they took away.

“What’s your name, buddy?” one of them asks. I shake my head. I’m not getting this. My mouth opens, but no intelligible sound comes out.

“He’s gone zombie,” his partner says. “Leave him.”

The other one nods, rubbing his chin, looking down at me. Then he says, “The commander ordered retrieval of all uninfected civilians.”

He tucks the blanket around me, and with one fluid motion heaves me out of the bunk and over his shoulder. As a definitively infected civilian, I’m pretty shocked.

“Chill, zombie,” he tells me. “You’re going to a better place now.”

I believe him. And for a second I let myself believe I’m not going to die after all.

26

THEY TAKE ME to a quarantined floor at the base hospital reserved for plague victims, nicknamed the Zombie Ward, where I get an armful of morphine and a powerful cocktail of antiviral drugs. I’m treated by a woman who introduces herself as Dr. Pam. She has soft eyes, a calm voice, and very cold hands. She wears her hair in a tight bun. And she smells like hospital disinfectant mingled with a hint of perfume. The two smells don’t go well together.