The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(78)

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 arms 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?”