The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(57)

He is shaking his head over and over. Dr. Pam is wrong. He’s never seen one. For hours he listened to Daddy speculating about what they might look like. Heard his father say they might never know what they look like. There had been no messages from them, no landers, no signs of their existence except the grayish-green mothership in high orbit and the unmanned drones. How could Dr. Pam be saying he had seen one?

She holds out her hand. “If you want to see, I can show you.”

42

BEN PARISH IS DEAD.

I don’t miss him. Ben was a wuss, a crybaby, a thumb-sucker.

Not Zombie.

Zombie is everything Ben wasn’t. Zombie is hardcore. Zombie is badass. Zombie is stone-cold.

Zombie was born on the morning I left the convalescent ward. Traded in my flimsy gown for a blue jumpsuit. Assigned a bunk in Barracks 10. Whipped back into shape by three squares a day and brutal physical training, but most of all by Reznik, the regiment’s senior drill instructor, the man who smashed Ben Parish into a million pieces, then reconstructed him into the merciless zombie killing machine that he is today.

Don’t get me wrong: Reznik is a cruel, unfeeling, sadistic bastard, and I fall asleep every night fantasizing about ways to kill him. From day one he’s made it his mission to make my life as miserable as possible, and he’s pretty much succeeded. I’ve been slapped, punched, pushed, kicked, and spat on. I’ve been ridiculed, mocked, and screamed at until my ears rang. Forced to stand for hours in the freezing rain, scrub the entire barracks floor with a toothbrush, disassemble and reassemble my rifle until my fingers bled, run until my legs turned to jelly…you get the idea.

I didn’t get it, though. Not at first. Was he training me to be a soldier or trying to kill me? I was pretty sure it was the latter. Then I realized it was both: He really was training me to be a soldier—by trying to kill me.

I’ll give you just one example. One’s enough.

Morning calisthenics in the yard, every squad in the regiment, over three hundred troops, and Reznik picks this time to publicly humiliate me. Looming over me, his legs spread wide, hands on knees, his fleshy, pockmarked face close to mine as I dipped into push-up number seventy-nine.

“Private Zombie, did your mother have any children that lived?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

“I bet when you were born she took one look at you and tried to shove you back in!”

Jamming the heel of his black boot into my ass to force me down. My squad is doing knuckle push-ups on the asphalt trail that rings the yard, because the ground is frozen solid and asphalt absorbs blood; you don’t slip around as much. He wants to make me fail before I reach one hundred. I push against his heel: No way I’m starting over. Not in front of the entire regiment. I can feel my fellow recruits watching me. Waiting for my inevitable collapse. Waiting for Reznik to win. Reznik always wins.

“Private Zombie, do you think I’m mean?”

“Sir! No, sir!”

My muscles burn. My knuckles are scraped raw. I’ve gained back some of the weight, but have I gotten back the heart?

Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine. Almost there.

“Do you hate my guts?”

“Sir! No, sir!”

Ninety-three. Ninety-four. Someone from another squad whispers, “Who is that guy?” And someone else, a girl’s voice, says, “His name is Zombie.”

“Are you a killer, Private Zombie?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

“Do you eat alien brains for breakfast?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

Ninety-five. Ninety-six. The yard is funeral-quiet. I’m not the only recruit who loathes Reznik. One of these days, somebody’s going to beat him at his own game, that’s the prayer, that’s what’s on my shoulders as I fight to one hundred.

“Bullshit! I hear you’re a coward. I hear you run from a fight.”

“Sir! No, sir!”

Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Two more and I’ve won. I hear the same girl—she must be standing close by—whisper, “Come on.”

On the ninety-ninth push-up, Reznik shoves me down with his heel. I fall hard on my chest, roll my cheek against the asphalt, and there’s his puffy face and tiny pale eyes an inch from mine.

Ninety-nine; one short. The bastard.

“Private Zombie, you are a disgrace to the species. I’ve hacked up lugies tougher than you. You make me think the enemy was right about the human race. You should be ground up for slop and passed out a hog’s shithole! Well, what are you waiting for, you stinking bag of regurgitated puke, an effing invitation?”

My head rolls to one side. An invitation would be nice, thank you, sir. I see a girl around my age standing with her squad, her arms folded across her chest, shaking her head at me. Poor Zombie. She isn’t smiling. Dark eyes, dark hair, skin so fair it seems to be glowing in the early-morning light. I have the feeling I know her from somewhere, though this is the first time I remember seeing her. There are hundreds of kids being trained for war and hundreds more arriving every day, handed blue jumpsuits, assigned to squads, packed into the barracks ringing the yard. But she has the kind of face you remember.

“Get up, you maggot! Get up and give me a hundred more. One hundred more, or by God I will rip out your eyeballs and hang them from my rearview like a pair of fuzzy dice!”

I’m totally spent. I don’t think I’ve got enough left for even one more.