The 5th Wave

78

TWO HOURS.

The minute Vosch leaves, a clock inside my head begins to tick. No, not a clock. More like a timer ticking down to Armageddon. I’m going to need every second, so where is the orderly? Right when I’m about to pull out the drip myself, he shows up. A tall, skinny kid named Kistner; we met the last time I was laid up. He has a nervous habit of picking at the front of his scrubs, like the material irritates his skin.

“Did he tell you?” Kistner asks, keeping his voice down as he leans over the bed. “We’ve gone Code Yellow.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “You think they tell me anything? I just hope it doesn’t mean we’re taking another bunker-dive.” No one in the hospital likes the air raid drills. Getting several hundred patients underground in less than three minutes is a tactical nightmare.

“Better than staying topside and getting incinerated by an alien death ray.”

Maybe it’s psychological, but the minute Kistner pulls the drip, the pain sets in, a dull throbbing ache where Ringer shot me that keeps time with my heart. As I wait for my head to clear, I wonder if I should reconsider the plan. An evacuation into the underground bunker might simplify things. After the fiasco of Nugget’s first air raid drill, command decided to pool all noncombatant children into a safe room located in the middle of the complex. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier snatching him from there than checking every barracks on base.

But I have no idea when—or even if—that’s going to happen. Better stick to the original plan. Tick-tock.

I close my eyes, visualizing each step of the escape with as much detail as possible. I did this before, back when there were high schools and Friday night games and crowds to cheer at them. Back when winning a district title seemed like the most important thing in the world. Picturing my routes, the arc of the ball sailing toward the lights, the defender keeping pace beside me, the precise moment to turn my head and bring up my hands without breaking stride. Imagining not just the perfect play but the busted one, how I would adjust my route, give the quarterback a target to save the down.

There’s a thousand ways this could go wrong and only one way for it to go right. Don’t think a play ahead, or two plays or three. Think about this play, this step. Get it right one step at a time, and you’ll score.

Step one: the orderly.

My best buddy Kistner, giving somebody a sponge bath two beds down.

“Hey,” I call over to him. “Hey, Kistner!”

“What is it?” Kistner calls back, clearly annoyed with me. He doesn’t like to be interrupted.

“I have to go to the john.”

“You’re not supposed to get up. You’ll tear the sutures.”

“Aw, come on, Kistner. The bathroom’s right over there.”

“Doctor’s orders. I’ll bring you a bedpan.”

I watch him weave his way through the bunks toward the supply station. I’m a little worried I haven’t waited long enough for the meds to fade. What if I can’t stand up? Tick-tock, Zombie. Tick-tock.

I throw back the covers and swing my legs off the bed. Gritting my teeth; this is the hard part. I’m wrapped tight from chest to waist, and pushing myself upright stretches the muscles ripped apart by Ringer’s bullet.

I cut you. You shoot me. It’s only fair.

But it’s escalating. What happens on your next turn? You stick a hand grenade down my pants?

That’s a disturbing image, sticking a live grenade down Ringer’s pants. On so many levels.

I’m still full of dope, but when I sit up, the pain almost makes me black out. So I sit still for a minute, waiting for my head to clear.

Step two: the bathroom.

Force yourself to go slow. Take small steps. Shuffle. I can feel the back of the gown flapping open; I’m mooning the entire ward.

The bathroom is maybe twenty feet away. It feels like twenty miles. If it’s locked or if someone’s in there, I’m screwed.

It’s neither. I lock the door behind me. Sink and toilet and a small shower stall. The curtain rod is screwed into the wall. I lift the lid of the commode. A short metal arm that lifts the flapper, dull on both ends. Toilet paper holder is plastic. So much for finding a weapon in here. But I’m still on track. Come on, Kistner, I’m wide open.

Two sharp raps on the door, and then his voice on the other side.

“Hey, you in there?”

“I told you I had to go!” I yell.

“And I told you I was bringing a bedpan!”

“Couldn’t hold it anymore!”

The door handle jiggles.

“Unlock this door!”

“Privacy, please!” I holler.

“I’m going to call security!”

“All right, all right! Like I’m freaking going anywhere!”

Count to ten, flip the lock, shuffle to the toilet, sit. The door opens a crack, and I can see a sliver of Kistner’s thin face.

“Satisfied?” I grunt. “Now can you please close the door?”

Kistner stares at me for a long moment, plucking at his shirt. “I’ll be right out here,” he promises.

“Good,” I say.

The door eases shut. Now six slow ten-counts. A good minute.

“Hey, Kistner!”

“What?”

“I’m gonna need your help.”

“Define ‘help.’”

“Getting up! I can’t get off the damned can! I think I might have torn a suture…”

The door flies open. Kistner’s face is flushed with anger.

“I told you.”

He steps in front of me. Holds out both hands.

“Here, grab my wrists.”

“First can you close that door? This is embarrassing.”

Kistner closes the door. I wrap my fingers around Kistner’s wrists.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Step three: wet willy.

As Kistner pulls back, I drive forward with my legs, slamming my shoulder into his narrow chest, knocking him backward into the concrete wall. Then I yank him forward, pivot behind him, and pull his arm up high behind his back. That forces him to his knees in front of the toilet. I grab a handful of his hair, shove his face into the water. Kistner is stronger than he looks, or I’m a lot weaker than I thought. It seems to take forever for him to pass out.

I let go and stand back. Kistner does a slow roll and flops onto the floor. Shoes, pants. Pulling him upright to yank off the shirt. The shirt’s going to be too small, the pants too long, the shoes too tight. I rip off my gown, toss it into the shower stall, pull on Kistner’s scrubs. The shoes take the longest. Way too small. A sharp pain shoots through my side as I struggle to put them on. Looking down, I see blood seeping through the bandaging. What if I bleed through the shirt?

A thousand ways. Focus on the one way.

Drag Kistner into the stall. Fling the curtain closed. How long will he be out? Doesn’t matter. Keep moving. Don’t think ahead.

Step four: the tracker.

I hesitate at the door. What if someone saw Kistner come in and now sees me, dressed as Kistner, coming out?

Then you’re done. He’s going to kill you anyway. Okay, don’t just die, then. Die trying.

The operating room doors are the length of a football field away, past rows of beds and through what seems like a mob of orderlies and nurses and lab-coated doctors. I walk as quickly as I can toward the doors, favoring my injured side, which throws off my stride but it can’t be helped; for all I know, Vosch has been tracking me and he’s wondering why I’m not going back to my bunk.

Through the swinging doors, now in the scrub room, where a weary-looking doctor is soaped up to his elbows, preparing for surgery. He jumps when I come in.

“What are you doing in here?” he demands.

“I was looking for some gloves. We’ve run out up front.”

The surgeon jerks his head toward a row of cabinets on the opposite wall.

“You’re limping,” he says. “Are you hurt?”

“I pulled a muscle getting a fat guy to the john.”

The doctor rinses the green soap from his forearms. “You should have used a bedpan.”

Boxes of latex gloves, surgical masks, antiseptic pads, rolls of tape. Where the hell is it?

I can feel his breath against the back of my neck.

“There’s the box right in front of you,” he says. The guy’s giving me a funny look.

“Sorry,” I say. “Haven’t had much sleep.”

“Tell me about it!” The surgeon laughs and elbows me square in the gunshot wound. The room spins. Hard. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming.

He hurries through the inner doors to the operating theater. I move down the row of cabinets, throwing open doors, rummaging through the supplies, but I can’t find what I’m looking for. Light-headed, out of breath, my side throbbing like hell. How long will Kistner stay out? How long before someone ducks in for a piss and finds him?

There’s a bin on the floor beside the cabinets labeled HAZARDOUS WASTE—USE GLOVES IN HANDLING. Yank off the top and, bingo, there it is with wads of bloody surgical sponges and used syringes and discarded catheters.

Okay, so the scalpel’s coated in dried blood. I guess I could sterilize it with an antiseptic wipe or wash it in the sink, but there’s no time, and a dirty scalpel is the least of my worries.

Lean against the sink to steady yourself. Push your fingers against your neck to locate the tracker under the skin, and then press, don’t slice, the dull, dirty blade into your neck until it splits open.

79

STEP FIVE: NUGGET.

A very young-looking doctor hurries down the corridor toward the elevators, wearing a white lab coat and a surgical mask. Limping, favoring his left side. If you pulled open his white coat, you might see the dark red stain on his green scrubs. If you pulled down his collar, you might also see the hastily applied bandage on his neck. But if you tried to do either of these things, the young-looking doctor would kill you.

Elevator. Closing my eyes as the car descends. Unless somebody’s conveniently left a golf cart unattended by the front doors, walking distance to the yard is ten minutes. Then the hardest part, finding Nugget among the fifty-plus squads bivouacked there and getting him out without waking anybody. So maybe half an hour to seek and snatch. Another ten or so to slip over to the Wonderland hangar where the buses unload. This is where the plan begins to break down into a series of wild improbabilities: stowing away on an empty bus, overcoming the driver and any soldiers on board once we’re clear of the gate, and then when, where, and how to dump the bus and take off on foot to rendezvous with Ringer?

What if you have to wait for the bus? Where are you going to hide?

I don’t know.

And once you’re on the bus, how long will you have to wait? Thirty minutes? An hour?

I don’t know.

You don’t know? Well, here’s what I know: It’s too much time, Zombie. Somebody’s going to sound the alarm.

She’s right. It is too much time. I should have killed Kistner. It had been one of the original steps:

Step four: kill Kistner.

But Kistner isn’t one of them. Kistner’s just a kid. Like Tank. Like Oompa. Like Flint. Kistner didn’t ask for this war and he didn’t know the truth about it. Maybe he wouldn’t have believed me if I told him the truth, but I never gave him that chance.

You’re soft. You should have killed him. You can’t rely on luck and wishful thinking. The future of humanity belongs to the hardcore.

So when the elevator doors slide open to the main lobby, I make a silent promise to Nugget, the promise I didn’t make to my sister, whose locket he wears around his neck.

If anyone comes between you and me, they’re dead.

And the minute I make that promise, it’s like something in the universe decides to answer, because the air raid sirens go off with an eardrum-busting scream.

Perfect! For once things are going my way. No crossing the length of the camp now. No sneaking into the barracks searching for the Nugget in a haystack. No race to the buses. Instead, a straight shot down the stairwell to the underground complex. Grab Nugget in the organized chaos of the safe room, hide out until the all-clear sounds, and then on to the buses.

Simple.

I’m halfway to the stairs when the deserted lobby lights up in a sickly green glow, the same smoky green that danced around Ringer’s head when I slipped on the eyepiece. The overhead fluorescents have cut off, standard procedure in a drill, so the light isn’t coming from inside, but from somewhere in the parking lot.

I turn around to look. I shouldn’t have.

Through the glass doors, I see a golf cart racing across the parking lot, heading toward the airfield. Then I see the source of the green light sitting in the covered entranceway of the hospital. Shaped like a football, only twice as big. It reminds me of an eye. I stare at it; it stares back at me.

Pulse… Pulse… Pulse…

Flash, flash, flash.

Blinkblinkblink.